Apr 22 2009
Gender disappointment? Seriously?
On my birth board many women are discovering if their uterus residents are sporting cheeseburgers or hot dogs. It’s such an exciting time, seeing posts that joyfully announce, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” and the following congratulatory messages from fellow board members.
Then, there are the occasional few who, instead of excitedly announcing the sex of their baby, mention that they’re upset they didn’t get the flavor they wanted.
That pisses me off.
Okay, back up, before you get mad at me. I’m not saying that it isn’t okay to be a little disappointed if you were really hoping for one or the other. A little disappointment is one thing. Many people want a boy and a girl, and are a little bummed when they end up with all boys or vice-versa. A little bummed is not what I’m talking about. A few moments of, “Dang, I was hoping for a girl” is not a big deal.
What is a big deal, is when people go into full-blown fits of grief over the fact that their family isn’t going to be exactly the way they always pictured it.
Do you know how many people on this earth would kill to be in your shoes right now? How many people would be more than happy to have a family of all girls, just so they could have their very own family?
It is so immature and so selfish, in my opinion, to be disappointed by the gender of your child. When you got pregnant, you weren’t guaranteed a certain sex (no, not even if you did the deed at a certain point in your cycle, stood on your head afterward, and then danced a jig). You went into pregnancy knowing full well that was is a 50/50 chance that you would get the sex you “wanted.”
From what I have seen on the birth boards, many of these moms “suffering” from gender disappointment are first timers. This makes me giggle in an evil little way. In my mind I’m thinking, “Well, get used to things not going the way you planned them, honey. You’re a mom now, that’s how it works.” If you can’t even deal with the fact that your child isn’t the “right” sex, you are going to have some serious problems adjusting to motherhood.
Lesson number one in parenting: You don’t have control over everything anymore.
Yep, sure you’re the parent and what you say goes… but that doesn’t work for things like determining your baby’s gender, deciding on when you’re going to go into labor, or even how your labor will go (no matter how much you hash out your birth plan). And those are all things that happen before the baby gets here. When they’re here, there’s even less you have control over. Like how much spit up your little cherub decides to decorate your shirt with merely moments before you were supposed to walk out the door. See what I’m talking about?
So, some advice for those of you severely disappointed in the gender of your baby: Get used to not being in control of everything now. It’ll save you a whole lot of grief later.
