Thank heaven for little girls

Wes and I have been talking more and more about kids recently. (For anyone reading this and getting their hopes up – don’t. I’m guessing it will still be a few years before we actually do anything more than talk about this.) We are pretty sure we want a family, that we want several children, and that we would seriously consider adopting internationally. But the one thing I’ve always been completely sure about is that I really want girls. Wes and others have given me a hard time about this – I guess it’s not politically correct to actually have a gender preference, even though everybody always asks. More often than not, though, people are more surprised that the preference is for girls. Oh, but you have to have a boy! they say. I want to know why. This has always bothered me. With no disrespect to my husband, father, or brothers, what’s so special about boys that’s evidently lacking in girls? It’s not that I don’t want boys, but that I really do want girls. What’s so wrong with that?

I think part of my inclination for girls, aside from my very positive experiences with little girls whom I’ve cared for over the years, is the world’s seeming disinclination towards girls. I can think of so many examples of couples who are hoping their firstborn is a boy, who are having more and more children hoping for a boy, who receive looks of sympathy or pity because they have several girls and no boy. This might not bother me so much if I knew of just as many families who were hoping their firstborn was a girl, who are still having kids hoping for at least one girl. But I don’t. And I just don’t get it.

I’m glad – very glad – to be a woman living in America. I know that a woman’s status is greatly devalued in many other countries – most, save Europe. And yet it seems even in America we can’t overcome the patriarchal attitudes that you need a son to carry on the family name, to play ball with dad, to make the family proud, to make your family complete. In many countries around the world, the desire to have a son has been taken to new extremes. I haven’t heard of this happening in the US, but this is also a country where most families can – or do – have as many children as they desire.

This is an excerpt from the article “India's 'girl deficit' deepest among educated” by Scott Baldauf, staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor, reposted on Yahoo! News.

NEW DELHI - Banned by Indian law for more than a decade, the practice of prenatal selection and selective abortion remains a common practice in India, claiming up to half a million female children each year, according to a recent study by the British medical journal, The Lancet.

The use of ultrasound equipment to determine the sex of an unborn child - introduced to India in 1979 - has now spread to every district in the country. The study found it played a crucial role in the termination of an estimated 10 million female fetuses in the two decades leading up to 1998, and 5 million since 1994, the year the practice was banned. Few doctors in regular clinics offer the service openly, but activists estimate that sex-selection is a $100 million business in India, largely through mobile sex-selection clinics that can drive into almost any village or neighborhood.

Please understand – I think little boys are great. I have cared now for two sets of twin boys who are sweet and fun and totally lovable. But something inside me just wants girls, and I won’t be upset if I do have only girls. My only question is – why do people find that so disappointing?