You may have read some of the blog rage for a certain study about how a woman’s prenatal diet can influence the sex of her child (huh- I thought sperm determined sex, but that eliminates blaming the ladies don’t it). But of course they ONLY talk about how it influences the birth of boy babies. Cause who in their right mind would want a girl?

My answer at Shakes was:

Huhm, my pre-baby-boy gestation diet was diet coke and marlboros (I was 19 and he was a surprise) so I am going to say diet coke and malboros makes boys. Maybe for girls it’s mountain dew and camels.

But, that is a wee bit unfair. I can’t really pick on people for wanting a child of one sex over another. When I was pregnant I wanted a boy. I grew up in house full of cruelty directed at me purely because of my sex. My mother hated me because I was a girl. I was given twice the work, none of the encouragement and resources such as clothing only grudgingly (and then with months of guilt, anger and actual objects thrown at me for needing anything). My birthday was regularly forgot (My brother’s birthday is a month before mine so there wasn’t any money left for presents or cake by then anyways). And that is just the easy stuff, only my therapist knows the worst. I am told that my aunt cried when I was born because I was a girl (not that she hates girls, she has 2 daughters who she loves and supports unconditionally) but because she knew my lot in life was going to suck with my mother.

So when I found out I was pregnant at 19, I did not think I had enough strength or distance from my own childhood to give a daughter a fair chance. I wanted a boy because at least I had seen how to raise a boy with love. And a boy is what I got.

Now with 13 years of mommy experience and almost as much therapy, I think I could raise a kick ass girl. But I’ve come a long way to be able to say that.

It is easy for us to cringe at the idea of sex selective abortions and to bemoan the fate of all the little unwanted Chinese girls. We can push for restrictions on sex selective abortions all we want, but that doesn’t change the culture that values boys over girls. It just gives girls to parents, like my mother, who don’t want to raise them. We can find it disgusting that so many people, men and women, want sons to pass on the family name or give the birth of a boy more value than that of a girl.But we really aren’t that much different than the Chinese. We still value boy children over girl children.

And until we change that value system, until a child is valued because it is a child and not because of it’s xy chromosomes, then complaining and restricting doesn’t do a damn thing but put girls into homes where they are despised. Trust me, I know.