Letters to the Editor
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If my son's sons are outnumbered
then they will be in high demand. either that or like today, the ever smaller population of boys are simply defective women, an anomaly to be corrected.
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Maybe we should be talking about entitlement
I have a hard time understanding people who will spend so much money, time and effort trying to control every aspect of their lives in order to end up with their picture-perfect idea of a family. (Which any parent can tell you is just a fantasy, at best). Is it just the strong sense of entitlement that so many people in our society, particularly the wealthy, have developed to such an extreme? This attitude of "if it's out there and I can spend money on it, by god I'm going to get it" is really repulsive. I'm not saying this gender selection is immoral, but it's disturbing how many people feel if they earned the money themselves, there are no ethical or even value judgements to be made in how it is spent.
As to why girls are preferred to boys, I can only imagine that it is women driving this kind of gender choosing and many women seem to want a baby girl more than a baby boy. I'd like to introduce them to some teenagers and see if they change their minds! It's going to be sad for these people when their perfect little chosen girl turns out to be a real kid with real flaws.
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I tried for a girl and I got a girl.
I used certain folk medicine-type techniques. Did they work? Who knows. I can only say that I am happy with the results and the only expense I had was a basal thermometer and some vinegar.
I see nothing wrong with the sex selection of future progeny by individual parents. (I would see plenty wrong if this were some sort or government policy or driven by government policy.) Every child should be highly desired and I yearned for a daughter. At the time, I did not really understand the source of my yearning. Now I do. I grew up as the slightly older sibling to three boys. I had enormous responsibility for the care of my younger brothers. I was not really old enough to have such responsibility and certain aspects of it left their mark. For instance, when my brothers did anything wrong, I was often blamed. Dealing with three active little boys when you are young yourself can be almost traumatic. Always, I had longed for a sister close to my age with whom I could share confidences and who would vote on MY SIDE to watch something besides westerns on television.
If the techniques I used actually had some influence on my having the daughter I wanted, all I can say is that I am not one bit sorry.
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Hester
is dead-on, bulls-eye correct.
Rather than paying tens of thousands to get the 'correct sex' in your child, why not support a destitute family in the 3rd world. Like get off your spoiled white butts and go meet people who weren't born with a silver-spoon shoved up there arse (& yes, if you were born in a 1st world country, you're rich & spoiled).
Maybe that family could even eat twice a day and afford to send their kids to school.
Naaaw, couldn't do that.
Instead, libbies come to places like this to screech about how bad men/conservatives/whites/xtians/athiests/Mike Vick/et al are.
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to Hester Eastman
Do you mean to imply that girls are somehow more difficult than boys?
It was quite the opposite in our family... neither of us two daughters were rebellious children.
Then again, our parents were older & wiser when they raised us, and gave us the freedom to be ourselves.
If your kids are brats, you might want to ask yourself why - only you know... all individuals are flawed, parents included. Don't blame the kids!
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Technology has outpaced ethics for many fertility issues...
... such as genetic testing for birth defects, to name another. It seems like mainstream medicine is offering parents more and more options to try to control pregnancy and childbirth (elective C-sections, gender choice, etc.). The ethical issues around these choices still remain to be resolved - it may take generations to do so.
I wonder if this preference by American parents for daughters reflects the fact that our culture has pathologized a lot of typical boy behaviors, so that having a boy seems difficult and dangerous. Parents worry about their boys being autistic, or having ADHD, or being violent - these issues get so much press. Personally, I think that our culture isn't set up to handle typical boy behavior - active boys or overfocused boys don't fit in in No Child Left Behind classrooms, or neighborhoods where kids can't play outside.
Finally, I'm just going to put this out there - I think that a lot of families want a girl so they can shop for her! They want to buy all those girly-girl outfits you can't avoid in the stores! Disclosure: I have a 1-year-old son. I can't count how many times people have asked about our plans for a second baby, and said something along the lines of, "It'd be so much more fun to dress a little girl."
All I have to say to that is that once you become a parent, you realize that the idea that you're going to control this experience is a joke, and you're best off relaxing and enjoying the ride.
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Choice does not imply 'spoiled'
Any more than any other choice. That's projection, I'm sorry. If people chose to tip the balance in favor of one gender or another that's not materially different from choosing to have a given number of children in the first place. So unless you're willing to dictate some draconian rule of how many children one is 'entitled' to have then you have to butt out of these choices as well. You don't have to like it.
BTW after a generation of fighting off claims that boys are criminals, ADD, ADHD, OCD, Austistic and the lot can you actually blame people for being gun-shy? We've helped create a perfect storm where for the first time we can avoid the horrible problems brought to light by the post liberal feminist cant.