Sons and daughters are equally brilliant.* I speak from experience.
I had three sons in a row and then a daughter. During my fourth pregnancy people would say to me (in front of my three little boys!) things like:
“I expect you’re really hoping for a daughter this time.”
People have assumed that I carried on having babies just in order to get a daughter, which was obviously what I really wanted. I have had comments like:
“If you hadn’t had a daughter this time would you have tried again?”
As if! As if having four children was part of some kind of plan! (Rather than just plain carelessness).
And my answer to all of this is NO! I never minded what sex a baby turned out to be so long as it was a healthy baby, and I loved having boys, it was brilliant; boys are brilliant. I would have totally welcomed a fourth boy.
That’s not to say that I don’t also love having a daughter, but the suggestion that I was holding out for her, and my sons were in some way a disappointment every time…well, I can’t understand how anyone might think that.
Now that my two oldest are young men, with jobs and commitments, these days I often do things with only the two youngest, and it sometimes feels like having a second family. I was thinking this as we were doing the six hour drive back from Grandma’s yesterday: I remember the days when my family was two boys, and now my family is a boy and a girl!
My two son family consisted of a three-year-old and a five-year-old whereas my son and daughter family are fifteen and eighteen (the years in between when I had three and then four children just seem like a glorious muddle to me now). There is still the same larking about and teasing on car journeys, still the same need for a constant supply of Pringles, still lots of fun and laughter and merry japes, but they don’t fight any more and the conversation has moved on from trains to favourite bands. So, better, worse or the same? Well it’s impossible to say what the difference is between having two sons and having a son and a daughter, although for some reason yesterday, as we sat on the M25 moving an inch a minute, it felt important to try.
What I do know is that having already sent two boys off out into the world, I am incredibly lucky to have this second experience of spending time with two great kids – and I still have no preference between sons and daughters.
*with apologies to all my children. You’re all special in your own ways 😉
Christine Griffin
Gosh you’re good Stephanie. You so capture what I feel so often. I don’t alwYs comment but need to this time. I have my gorgeous son and then waited 5 and a half years before I was blessed to have another child and I seriously didn’t care what sex that bBy was – just so long as they arrived safely. People said the most dreadful things before she arrived, and after, about how wonderful to ‘complete’ my family with a girl. I love her so much, but had she been a boy, I would have loved him just the same!
Thanks Stephanie – I loved our last post too about the stresses we as parents put on ourselves…..sorry I didn’t comment.
Happy Easter – Christine Griffin x
Stephanie Davies-Arai
Thanks Christine. Happy Easter to you all 🙂 xx
Iota
I had two boys and then a girl, and yes, there was a huge assumption that really annoyed me throughout my third pregnancy that I was hoping for a girl, and yes, people would talk about it in front of my boys. “A girl would be nice…” and I’d reply “I’d love a third boy”, and they’d repeat “Yes… but a girl would be nice”. Aaaargh…
My parents in law had 5 grandsons, and were very excited to have a grandaughter, and I found that hard to deal with.