My wife and I did not know the sex of our child before she was born. Letting the mystery be, and allowing ourselves to be surprised and delighted by either a boy or a girl was part of our plan from the beginning. Frankly, I’m proud of myself for not giving in to the overwhelming temptation to “find out” in advance; the fact that we kept the ultrasounds to the bare minimum helped. My standard answer to the ubiquitous question “So, what are you having?” became “We were really hoping for an eighth chinchilla, but the doctors tell us it’s a human”. Some folks laughed, and others looked confused, and a few — a very few — were genuinely offended by our lack of concern for the sex of our child.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that we don’t care that our daughter is a girl. It’s just that from the perspective of someone who sees a new life as miraculous — and who sees gender as largely a social construct — the idea that my child’s plumbing ought to be the most interesting aspect of her identity seems misplaced. Truth be told, I didn’t care one way or another whether we had a girl or a boy; we wanted, like all parents, a healthy child. Now that that child has been revealed to us as a female, we’re both thrilled to have a daughter. I’m over-the-moon about my baby girl, but no more so than I would be if we had had a son. And I’m utterly mystified by the prospect of anyone feeling otherwise.

My wife and I do talk about having more children. I’m one of four, and she is one of four, so there’s something about that number that has a certain amount of appeal. (This is not the post to debate family size and environmental responsibility, though I will post on that soon.) All things being equal, I’d like to have at least one child of each sex. I’ve spent so many years working with both young men and women; I’d like to have both male and female energy in my home. Good feminist that I am, I recognize that children of either biological sex can manifest both energies! But if I have a household filled with daughters, I will not be heartsick. One daughter is more than enough at the moment. (Parenthetically, again, I note that our girl was born just a couple of hours before those infamous octuplets came into the world about 20 miles away. A feeble attempt at upstaging, I say.)

In a related vein, Kittywampus put up this post on the day my daughter was born: “Reborn” Female? It starts out with a look at the phenomenon of ultra-realistic “newborn” dolls, and notes that the vast majority of those available are female. Kittywampus wonders whether we’re moving into a period of cultural preference for daughters in this country, and whether that is really such a good thing. Noting that at least in America and the industrialized west, we no longer have such an obsession with male heirs, she writes:

While I’m very glad for the shift in attitudes (not to mention the modern awareness that the father’s X or Y determines sex), I’m not at all convinced that a general preference for girls would be a real improvement. For one thing, reversing sexism wouldn’t end it. It would only flip the terms of the inequality. This is structurally the same as the question of whether matriarchy would be superior to patriarchy. As long as one group is lording it over another, it’s not fair or just … not that we’re in any danger of living in a matriarchal society, mind you!

For another thing I suspect that all kinds of rigid assumptions about girls are wrapped around the growing preference for them. Girls are thought to be easier to manage. They’re imagined to be more docile. How is this progress from the tired old stereotypes of female passivity?

Bold emphasis mine. Just in the past week, as folks have congratulated us upon our little girl, and begun to give us a stunning assortment of desperately cute little outfits, I’ve sensed this perception that “girls are easier”. Easier to shop for, easier to control, easier — perhaps — even to love. That’s not my perception, mind you; if I had a baby boy, I cannot imagine adoring him one iota less than I adore my precious daughter. But without being able to articulate exactly what I’m feeling, there does seem to be an “extra” outpouring of delight from many in our social circle that we’ve had a daughter. Recent births in my extended family seem equally balanced between boys and girls, so it’s not as if this is the first female born in a generation. It’s something else. Continue reading →