Gender Reveal

Let me be honest.

I’ve always hated the stereotypes. Boys wear blue; girls wear pink. Boys play with trucks. Girls play with dolls.

My husband and I currently have two girls. They wear tutus. They like singing Frozen. They carry around baby dolls and love glitter crafts. We also painted their nursery blue and dress them in dinosaur pajamas. They also get muddy and make giant messes and pick their nose. They also love basketball and playing monsters. Adalyn’s favorite activity for about a year was going to watch construction trucks; I loved that she wanted to spend hours naming a flatbed, a dump truck, a fork lift, a mixer. That doesn’t mean she is any less wonderful when she’s prancing around the house in her fifth dress up of the hour, wearing high heels and singing Hard Knock Life at the top of her lungs. I love (mostly) that her little sister is always dirty, always climbing things, always getting into something, always moving. That doesn’t mean Bria won’t like sparkly things or princesses, or the millions of activities and toys that are not associated with gender. This world is not black and white -- or blue and pink. There’s quite a few colors in between.

I get that there are differences. I grew up with brothers, and I’m raising [at least] two girls. I know. Boys and girls are Not the same. When a friend finds out she’s having a girl, I can’t wait for them to experience the things I love about having a daughter. I’m sure folks with boys feel the same when someone announces they’re having a boy.

 But I defensively twitch when people look at their active son climbing on the playground and say “See that? He’s such a boy.”  As if girls don’t climb on playgrounds and get dirty? Or they’ll tell me, “It must be nice having girls. My boys are exhausting.”  Pardon me, I forgot girls just want to quietly host tea parties for their dolls all day?

At any rate, after announcing being pregnant, folks immediately start guessing the gender. Which is fun. I love it.  And of course everyone is curious if we’ll have a boy after two girls. So am I! There’s no harm in that at all. But every once and a while, it’s not that someone brings up whether we’ll have a boy or a third girl, it’s how they say it. I cringe when someone innocently says, “Hopefully Sheaff will get a boy, finally.” I find myself dreading that if/when we find out she’s a girl, the immediate reaction might be, “Oh no, is your husband disappointed that it’s not a boy?” People said it before; they may say it again. Here’s why I hope they don’t:

·      Frankly, if in those first few seconds of the ultrasound, my husband feels some disappointment that we won’t have a boy, why does the world care so much? Why this pressure, this focus?  Both of us are smart enough to know that a child with boy-parts is not needed in order to make our family complete.

·      Think about these statements are implying to our daughters.  My oldest can grasp concepts from conversations, and what they are essentially telling her is that girls are a cause for disappointment, for statements like “Oh well, maybe next time.” That their dad would be closer to a son. That she and her sister are not enough. I don’t think so. [Enter: Mama Bear].

·      And why is it assumed that it’s the dad who would want a boy anyway? I grew up with two older brothers – I had to wear their hand-me-downs; I watched Top Gun and Star Wars weekly; I stayed out shooting hoops till dusk with them; I loved playing Indiana Jones and a rather injury-prone, full-on-tackle version of Keep-Away. I’ve never been good at make-up; I blow-dried my hair maybe 4 times last year (which, by the way, resulted in a q-tip-resembling disaster). Just as folks have powerful sisterhoods and thus love the idea of girls, of course I love the idea of a boy, partly because having brothers is one of my favorite defining parts of my life. That being said, I don’t think that a specific gender is what makes a sibling-hood strong.  

·      It is not cliché for parents to just want a healthy child. When you’ve faced the alternative, whether your kid has a penis or not is the least of your worries.

·      Fact: We will be overjoyed if it’s a boy. Mixing it up would be awesome. We would love whatever new adventures a little fella would bring. He might love basketball. He might love figure-skating in tights. Who knows! We will love him no matter what. 

·      Fact: We will be overjoyed if it’s a girl. We have two completely different, wild, willful, wonderful girls already; our next would be her own person with her own new adventures we will welcome! She might love princess gowns. She might love archery. Who knows! We will love her no matter what.  

So if you’re ever thinking of telling a pregnant woman with two girls that your fingers are crossed that she’ll finally have a boy, just know you might be the 50^th person to say it that day. And if it’s me, it will be the 50^th time I tell someone that he Or she will be just what we need. 

.....That is, until teenage years. Then we’ll probably need a beer.