i know my kneejerk is low grade rage, but that's like, normal and stuff

Why I didn't want a girl by Amy Wilson, parenting.com

I'm going to be upfront on this one; my period started last night, I am averaging something less than six hours of sleep a night, and my niece was sick this morning, as is my nephew. So I am not any of the following: reasonable or any word like it.

[Note: I'm claiming oversensitivity for the next three to five days. If everyone respects this, I will reward with filthy, filthy porn. Or you know, not having a public break with reality. Or photographing my new altar for the Elder Gods on my work desk.]

However, I'm going to take this for a spin, if you don't mind.

Gender preferences in children I don't have any real opinion on. However, I do object to this:

Even before I had sons, I worried about having a daughter. I could handle boys, with their cut-and-dried needs, but girls were so much more complicated. Girls have elaborate hairstyling requirements. They whine and mope, manipulate and triangulate. How was I going to deal with that?

I don't know what to do with this. I just don't. And the rest of the article makes me equally uncomfortable. I can't tell what's pinging me so hard, except--you know. I can't think of any stereotypical boy behavior/themes that are treated with the same contempt as those for girls are.

Comments

[wrenlet.livejournal.com]

Girls have elaborate hairstyling requirements. They whine and mope, manipulate and triangulate.

I... what? I would like to introduce her to my whiny, mopey, triangulating BOYCHILD with his devastating cowlicks, and then I would kinda like to slap her.

[eal.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh, so this!!!!

My son is 3 1/2 and I would call him a drama queen, but, well, we don't know his orientation yet, so it might not be completely appropriate. He shrieks when he doesn't get his way. We have said, repeatedly, that he has a great future as an air raid siren.

His sister (all almost six months of her) is a breeze by comparison.

sorry..i just HAD TO

[robotjen.livejournal.com]

Re: sorry..i just HAD TO

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*falls over* I love you.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

Wow. I really pity that child. My first reaction was, "I wonder if this column is enough to have child services intervene?"

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I wince for the kid. Just. The "girls, eww" thing going on just freaked me out.

[mrshamill.livejournal.com]

My knee-jerk reaction? She's bugfuck insane. I could get you a longer reaction after my incipient migraine goes away, but I think it'll be mostly the same. Sorry.

Here, I'll cheer you up. From a friend of a friend: Someone once said there would be a black president 'when pigs fly.' Sure enough, within Obama's first hundred days, SWINE FLU.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

...that is the greatest joke ever!

[libitina]

I've heard people not want boys because they are too messy or will require all that time getting baseballs and footballs thrown at them for proper physical and social development.

Personally, if I were to have multiple children, I'd just be wishing for them all to be the same gender.

And, yes, that author should be taken out to a back alley and worked over with sticks.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I'd like mixed gender, I think? I was one of three sisters, and it would have been nice to have a little variety in interaction, since my family is overwhelming female.

[perspi.livejournal.com]

And now I'd like to read "Why I Didn't Want You For My Mom" by Daughter Wilson...

[seperis.livejournal.com]

No joke. I would hate to read this if I were her daughter.

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

That flat-out horrifies me.

Frankly, when I have a child, I kinda hope it's a girl. My husband feels similarly. *g* We both feel like we have some idea of how to raise a girl in whom we can instill the values that matter to us. Boys totally freak us out! How would I raise a countercultural boy in a world where boys are so dominant? Gah!

(In all seriousness, when I have a child, I hope to God it's healthy; end of story. But I do feel better-equipped to parent a girl. And I'm appalled by this woman and her complete lack of understanding or empathy.)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

(In all seriousness, when I have a child, I hope to God it's healthy; end of story. But I do feel better-equipped to parent a girl. And I'm appalled by this woman and her complete lack of understanding or empathy.)

This. Perfectly stated.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

I can see where the author is coming from here. Probably based on her own negative interactions with girly girls. Worried she wouldn't get along with her own daughter. Which I get. But I suspect she'll find that even if her daughter is all pink ribbons and princesses, it'll still be her daughter, and her tolerance for it will go up - because it'll be her daughter.

I mean, my mom is very feminine, and I'm NOT. It's been a sticking point, over the years, but my mom has come to appreciate my wry sense of humor (so much like my dad's) and my matter of fact attitude toward things, and I've learned to temper my "get it fixed" as opposed to "understand feelings" attitudes when I'm around her.

[casspeach.livejournal.com]

I can kind of see where she's coming from too - I was nervous when I heard my baby was going to be a boy. But she says herself that she's not into princesses and pink poodle parties, whatever the hell they are, so she knows from personal experience that not all females are uber-girly.

I wonder a little bit how one of her boys would fare if they *did* want a pink poodle party.

[casspeach.livejournal.com]

this: elaborate hairstyling requirements. They whine and mope, manipulate and triangulate

describes my (male) other half pretty much perfectly. I can get out of bed, have breakfast, feed the baby and menagerie and be ready to go in the time it takes him to tease his hair into the (apparently) perfect configuration! No idea what she means by triangulate here...I thought it was to do with finding positions on maps, so maybe she's not quite as sexist as she sounds against her own gender if she's not falling into the 'women can't read maps' thing.

This woman is clearly a dumbass of epic proportions, and it's really sad to see, for her, for her daughter, and for her sons.

I confess to being mildly nervous when my 20 week scan said I was having a boy, because I grew up with two sisters in a very female household, but you know what? We played a lot of football and climbed trees and had scalextrics for Christmas, so I reckon I'll be okay. Just as long as he doesn't want me to braid his hair when he's bigger, because I wouldn't have the first clue how to begin!

Also? This totally counts as respect for your oversensitivity, so may I say how much I am looking forward to the filthy filthy porn?

[casspeach.livejournal.com]

also? and I really wish I hadn't clicked through to the article: I also worry that girls have it harder -- whether they're tomboys or wear tutus. I fear I won't know how to protect my child from a world that may often tell her that she's not good enough as she is.

Bang up head start on that Ms Wilson.

[tevere.livejournal.com]

I fear I won't know how to protect my child from a world that may often tell her that she's not good enough as she is.

...You mean, like this article you just wrote, which completely demeans and stereotypes girls and tells them they're just NOT AS GOOD AS BOYS?

RAGE.

[casspeach.livejournal.com]

Ha! I just said the same thing. She's so very self-aware, no? I really wish I hadn't read it, because now I am angry.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I feel really bad for that kid. And that woman, so devaluing anything female or feminine.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

And that woman, so devaluing anything female or feminine.

That and the stereotyping icked me out. I can think of a lot of reasonable reasons to be wary of a different gendered child after two of the same gender, but all of these are so--stereotyped and just eww. No.

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

Good. God. Self-hate, much? You know, if she would approach her new daughter as an individual rather than a stereotype, she might stop freaking out so much. I'm just sayin'.

You know, I have a niece and a nephew. The boy spends approx 200 times as much on hair products as his sister does. Niece buys her own clothes, thankyouverymuch, and yes, she's a clothes horse, but AFAIK has never owned anything pink or frilly that wasn't forced on her by her mother (who really wanted a fluffy girl). She's levelheaded, he's as flaky as a good pie crust.

On another note, my company went to Bath & Body Works and bought out their mini hand sanitizer lotions and were giving them out as we came in today. Which is cool and creepy at the same time. Should I set up my Elder Gods altar too?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Good. God. Self-hate, much? You know, if she would approach her new daughter as an individual rather than a stereotype, she might stop freaking out so much. I'm just sayin'.

This. God, this.

[cottontail.livejournal.com]

I can't think of any stereotypical boy behavior/themes that are treated with the same contempt as those for girls are.

How about this? Little boys always walk around nekkid with their dangley bits hanging out? Then around puberty they are just always playing with said dangley bits.

Yeah, girls do it too, but at least we're not so ostentatious about it. ;)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

How about this? Little boys always walk around nekkid with their dangley bits hanging out? Then around puberty they are just always playing with said dangley bits.

Child preferred my nylon slip. I still look back on that and wonder how I ever escaped notice by CPS.

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

... Why isn't she concerned that she might be raising the kind of boys that make it hard to parent a girl because you know men like that are out there? Girls aren't born into this world with troubles; troubles are lent to them by boys who, say, are taught at home to loathe women.

I'm just saying, having a girl at home they have to treat as a person might be the only saving grace for those two kids. Also, this, THIS is why Miss Manners says that you should always answer "We don't care as long as it's healthy" and let those two guitar-wielding women on Youtube choke on their own hipster scorn. Because YOUR DAUGHTER WILL READ YOUR COLUMNS SOME DAY. Though in this case it seems like she might go "well, yeah. I kind of guessed that from everything else that happened in my childhood."

[seperis.livejournal.com]

ALL OF THIS. Yes.

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

WOW. HOW DID THIS GET PUBLISHED. My feminism, it hurts!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I don't even know. I kept expecting--something entirely different.

[thornsilver]

. Or photographing my new altar for the Elder Gods on my work desk.]

Personally, I have a plush green representation of an Elder God on my desk. I am contemplating giving him little plastic pigs for sacrificial purposes.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I should get a stuffed Cthulhu. *mulls*

[omglawdork.livejournal.com]

This is right up there with women who go around saying "oh, I don't like girls, so I don't really have girl friends - they're just so much drama [so, they "whine and mope, manipulate and triangulate"? ugh. -ed.]. Guys are just so much easier and honest." Really? Really? Who are these sainted guys, because they're not the ones I have been friends with. My husband, for example, freely admits that he's a million times more prone to mood swings than I am, a "typical" girl trait.

And then this is 100x WORSE, because this is a PARENT, who is supposed to love their kid no matter what!

A girl I know who's having a baby in the fall said the same thing, and I was like "you're kidding, right? It's your BABY."

ARGHHHH

It's great that she "gets it" now, as her tagline says, but I am so tired of this female-on-female hate. If the girls you know suck, maybe you need NEW FRIENDS, rather than writing off the whole gender.

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

I hate that no-female-friends thing. Especially because I'm a socially awkward female who really prefers to parallel-play (let's go hiking and not talk about our feelings) and so women who I would tend to be friends with are also women who fall into that whole Oy Womenz camp. So I get a lot of that nonsense.

[beadattitude.livejournal.com]

Wow. Soooooo, think she's projecting? Get this woman some therapy, stat.

Also, why is she having children if it's soooo hard to raise oh, one half of possible outcomes?

(Actually, I do have a childhood friend who loved being pregnant. Not so engaged as a mom, but, she loved having babies. She has five, now, two with cerebral palsy. Yeah, full time extra care for those, and then she had two more kids after that! People are NUTS.)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Also, why is she having children if it's soooo hard to raise oh, one half of possible outcomes?

Yes. That's--worrisome.

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

That article really pissed me off. First of all, I do understand the apprehension of having a baby of the other gender from the children you already have. You don't have to buy new clothes - much - and there are certain assumptions that you've learned to cope with.

But it sounds like the baby won't be loved as much as boys or at least will be marginallized.

Pink! >:( Both my girls hated pink, hated dolls, hated playing with their hair, loved Star Wars and hiking and you know what - it didn't matter! Because they each had their own personality and their own hopes, fears and dreams.

As long as the baby is healthy (and we went through a year of hell waiting to see if my second needed heart surgery -thank goodness she didn't but still), that's all that really matters.

Can you imagine what her daughter will think when she reads that article??? I feel so bad for her.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

As long as the baby is healthy (and we went through a year of hell waiting to see if my second needed heart surgery -thank goodness she didn't but still), that's all that really matters.

God, yes, exactly. Healthy is pretty much the epitome of what I'd ask if I were pregnant.

[lurkmuch.livejournal.com]

And by "over-sensitivity", you mean "perfectly understandable rage in the face of misogynistic idiocy"?

That whole thing just skeeved me right the hell out.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

It really just slid right up against my "God, eww" button like whoa.

[ninasis.livejournal.com]

My 2 year old son's favorite new phrase is, "You're not the boss!" Nobody knows where he heard this from, so I'm assuming it's just his past life as a tyrant coming out to play or something. I'm very worried that my son is totally going to be the kid that bullies all the other kids in school. That I will be getting the phone calls from the school that Ryan has bit/hit/pushed/generally made life miserable for his classmates.

Whoever thinks having a boy is easier than having a girl needs a serious reality check.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Ha! Yes! Some different challenges, but honestly, betwen my son, nephew, and two nieces? Not that much difference.

[thegrrrl2002.livejournal.com]

Gah. That article made me furious. Plus, talk about whining and moping--I think the author has cornered the market on that.

And what's all this about boys and their cut-and-dried needs? I don't have kids myself, but from observing my niece and nephew, it's been quite the opposite.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I didn't get that cut-and-dried thing at all. I've never met a kid that was that simple.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

I....ok, I am not a parent yet, but it never occurred to me to describe any child's needs as "cut-and-dried".

I mean.

So the needs of girls are contemptible, and the needs of boys are so trivial that they don't need attention (because, one assumes, boys are Manly and Self-Sufficient)? Hi, The Patriarchy, how are YOU this fine morning?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

This. I kept wondering what on earth that even meant.

[eleveninches.livejournal.com]

Clearly this women has never met my brother.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if she's ever met a kid other than her own.

[pandarus.livejournal.com]

Mostly, that article did make me want to punch her in the head.

To be devil's advocate, I can sympathise a little with the distaste for pinkness and Barbie and all the saccharine gendered consumer culture stuff that little girls are told they have to love. (And, you know - some of them WILL love this stuff, and seek it out, regardless, because it IS their cup of tea.)

And I can also sympathise with the impatience at a particular streak of complicated bitchiness that crops up more often in the interactions of little girls than it does in the interactions of little boys. Girls tend to have a more nuanced awareness of social interactions than boys, which means that you more often get game-playing and over-analysis and deconstruction of minutiae of interactions, rather than the comparatively shallow and straight-forward interactions that are more common among little boys.

Key phrases: "more often" and "tend to." Because I can think of plenty of little girls of my acquaintance - the majority, in fact, at present - who do not fit that stereotype. And I can think of a fair few little boys who are whiny, mopey, manipulative little drama queens.

Because each kid is different, for fuck's sakes, and femaleness encompasses a HUGE range of ways of being. As does maleness.

...man, it just killed me, though, that after slagging off pink poodles etc (and, yes, I've done that, and been disparaging about Barbie to little kids, because I pretty much despise Barbie, and would rather girls found a better icon) SHE THEN WENT OUT TO BUY HER UNBORN CHILD A LOAD OF PINK FLUFFY CLOTHES. Because she's a girl.

I mean - what? WHAT? What the hell is WRONG with dressing your child in yellow or green? Especially if you have just expressed a loathing for the traditional trappings of cliched femininity? Why are you trying to shove your unborn child into this pigeonhole, even as you lambast her for possibly liking said pigeonhole's decor? (imho, all babies should wear bold coloured stripes, because babies in stripes are awesome. Maybe a few skull-and-crossbones motifs, alternately. My mother, otoh, felt that white was the way to go, and that colours were tacky.)

Short version: WTFF, lady? Your child is going to grow up and read this, and know that you didn't want her, and that your first thoughts about her were contempt and disappointment. NICE WORK.

[kernezelda]

Exactly, exactly, why perpetuate the stereotype she despises?