Gender Selection

I subscribe to two magazines. The first is Taste of Home. The second is Elle. I have subscribed to Elle since high school. It's one of those magazines that has 150 pages of ads by designers that I will never be able to afford to wear and, even if I could, would make me look like a hooker (in a bad way.)

When I became a mother I lost a lot of interest in that magazine and any publication like it. I didn't want to read a zillion stories in Parents on baby poop or breast feeding, but I also had no reason to be interested in where I could buy a $700.00 headband, or why I need it, or why it has revolutionized the industry.

About a year ago, I decided to let the subscription lapse because I (sadly) had zero in common with the content anymore. However, I kept receiving it. I just noticed on a renewal notice that Elle automatically extends my subscription unless I write to them with a cancellation. I'm glad it took me awhile to figure that out, because it gave me a chance to see the latest issue.

One of the feature articles describes women who desperately want female babies. These women will go to psychotic lengths to conceive a girl. I'm talking mixing up strange concoctions, eating a restrictive and bizarre high acid diet and some... ahem... ludicrous bedroom behavior. Keep in mind - this is not fertility treatments for women who want to have a baby - this is all out mechanical sperm-spinning, expensive injections and petri dish technology for women who are otherwise healthy, fertile and of child-bearing age.

The article goes on to highlight women who have done the techniques or paid to see specialists and, despite the effort and expense, still wind up giving birth to boys. The women are CRUSHED. They go into deep depressions, ignore the baby, and in some cases, give the male children up for adoption. They become obsessed with little girls, and in the process, destroy their families in pursuit of a fairy princess tea party.

I need to write to these women. You see, I've had fairy princess tea parties. They are not as fun in reality as they are in your imagination.
In reality it takes 45 minutes of preparation, a sleeve of Oreos, 3 minutes of interest by the child, 20 minutes of whining and tyranny by the fairy princess and 15 minutes of scrubbing Kool-aid out of the carpet.

You'd think that was the worst part, but it isn't! The author of the article has sympathy for these nut jobs!! She believes that ever since women have left the home to go to work and no longer rely on Mom or Grandma for support, that we've been craving female companionship therefore we crave having daughters.

I have two daughters, and I disagree.

Call me a rotten mother, but I don't get intense female cravings to bond with my girls. I have intense cravings for them to want to bond with a neighbor or their Grandma so that I can have an anxiety attack - in peace! I have intense cravings for pie and enchiladas! When I watch the Home Shopping Channel, I have intense cravings to buy gold plated jewelry! I have intense cravings to shave off my husband's eyebrows when he puts his pants in the laundry with his underwear still stuck inside the legs. But I never, ever, ever desire to have a uniquely female connection with my offspring.

Do these women seriously not see what lurks in their future if they pop out a chick? Remember when your Mom used to say, "I hope you grow up and have a daughter that acts just like you!" That wasn't a compliment, that was a threat! And now these crazies are getting squirrel urine injections and second mortgages trying to guarantee that it will happen!

The other night my dramatic, 6 year old X-chromosome started sobbing in her bed. She then walks down the hallway with her hand laid limply across her forehead and announces, "I'm crying... and I don't know why!!!" Sound familiar?? How on earth did I get the only pre-pubescent child with PMS?!?!
A week later she manages to convince all the other girls in her class that she's gone blind, and they spend the rest of the day leading her around and describing what the playground looks like. Do you know what boys do on the playground? They slap eachother to see who's the wussiest and try to unbolt the swings. I bet their mother's don't get calls from the school nurse reccomending they take their child for an eye exam.

I feel for these little boys whose mothers wanted them to be girls. Mothers are supposed to give their children what they need - not the other way around. Becoming obsessed with a fantasy world of slumber parties and shopping trips is naive and selfish, which are two qualities that no child wants in a parent. If you hear of another whacko who wants to unload their husband's namesake, give me a call. I have some chickens that need chasing, and my girls are too busy eating my lipstick to do it.


(c) 2009, Kelsey Robbins