Girls
When you’re pregnant, people ask questions, often when you’re standing in line to buy groceries. Checkers are particularly curious and likely to engage in pregnancy small-talk. When I became pregnant for the second time last year and my belly began to appear more baby bump than ate-too-much bump, I found myself answering the same line of questions again and again.
First: When are you due? (January.)
Then: Boy or girl? (Girl.)
Followed by: First baby? (Second.)
Then, inevitably: Two girls, huh? (Yep.)
That last question often led to something that I didn’t experience with my first, some variation of, “Planning to try for a boy?”
Putting aside the fact that “trying” for a specific gender isn’t really how it works, I do find a few things about this question unsettling. It implies that I would be disappointed that my second child was a girl and that my decision to have a third child would be, of course, because my family couldn’t possibly be complete without male offspring.
Let’s tackle the first implication. It is true that yes, for about five minutes, I was disappointed to discover I wouldn’t be having a boy. I wish I wasn’t, but I was. That could be social conditioning, or it could be that I wanted my husband to experience raising a son and my dad to experience having a grandson, or it could just be the feeling that I’ll likely only have two children so, balance. Regardless, it lasted a few minutes then passed as I began to think about all of the wonderful things my daughter could or would be.
She’ll be a sister, and I love that. Having two of my own, I can state with absolute certainty that sisters are the best people in the world. Though they may not realize until much, much later, my daughters will be better for having each other. Long phone conversations, reassurance in moments of insecurity and self-doubt, cooking together, shopping together, snuggling up to watch movies together. It gives me solace to know that both of my girls could share a relationship like that between me and my sisters.
Now as for the second implication, that my family would be or feel incomplete without a boy. I object. What, exactly, can a little boy do that a little girl can’t? Perhaps it’s the perception that my husband would like to, as a dad, teach his son how to race cars, fish or play sports. Yet, he already does that with his daughter. Maybe it’s the idea that we need someone to carry on his family name. Yet, both of our daughters carry both of our family names.
Or perhaps it has something to do with the other response we often get: “Poor dad!” This is often followed by a comment suggesting that girls are uniquely moody/loud/argumentative/some other negative stereotype of girls. What is this, the 1950s? Is dad some aloof figure who sits in his lounge chair reading the newspaper and waiting for supper? My husband is as immersed in our family happenings — from school, to dance lessons, to movie watching and fort-building — as I am. To suggest that the world of daughters is one that he cannot penetrate is at best naive and at worst demeaning.
I’m going to love having girls. I already do, and it’s not because we can paint nails and go shopping, though we definitely do those things. I love my girls because they are my daughters, and if I choose to have three children (not because we’re “going for a boy” but because we want to have three children), I’d gladly welcome another sister.
Inspired by the book Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, I assign my American Studies students 26 short pieces of creative nonfiction over the course of the year, each entry titled with the next letter of the alphabet. My hope is that they will develop a collection of personal stories they can mine for ideas when we work on personal (college) essays at the end of the year. In an effort to practice what I preach, I’m following along with their Ordinary Life Project.
Michelle Balmeo 