A friend posted a link on Facebook yesterday, called "10 things you don't say to a mother of boys", with the comment "Having just 1 boy, I already see the tendency" attached. The reason she posted this, is that her family seems disappointed her firstborn was a boy. Her brother also have boys. Two of them, and no girls. They have both been tossed comments like "You're gonna keep trying until you get the girl I hope?", and "Aww, what shame the second one is a boy too. Better luck next time" from their own family.
I am also a mother of a boy, with a second boy on the way. I haven't had that many comments directed at me, but I am well aware that what my friend is experiencing is rather common, and it pretty much always concern boys, unless we're talking about families who have 3-4 girls and no boys. What I have experienced though, is that one person first said "Oh how exciting. Maybe it's a girl this time? Or maybe you don't care that much about gender?" when I mentioned that one of my pregnancy symptoms was opposite of when I had my firstborn boy. Then proceeded later to ask "So, how do you feel about that?" with a little pity in her voice(atleast that's how I took it, but I could just have been a bit defensive due to expecting such a reaction, I don't know) when I told her the ultrasound showed another boy.
I have also recently read another forum discussion where a mother of three girls said she felt sorry for those who only had boys, and was gratefull she was so lucky she only had girls(obviously, it could just be a defence mechanism since she only had girls herself and possibly wanted both genders, I don't know), The point though, is that she is also helping with spreading the attitude that you're some kind of failure if all you get are boys.
While this is going on, a company that is used for several, if not all, official statistics regarding the norwegian population, has done a graph of the chance you'll have a third child if the two first are boys. The chance show an increase if your two first are both boys. The fact that people has noticed this even, could further be feeding the attitude that everyone should give birth to atleast one girl for all I know.
To be quite honest, I really hate the idea that it's going to be automaticly assumed, and added to the statistics, that if I decide to have a third child, it will be because my two first ones are both boys. Especially concidering the fact that a possible third child have been under evaluation long before my first one was even born.
I really don't understand where this attitude is coming from, and if it's even real. To me it just looks like some stupid idea some people have printed into their mind and started spreading to harm people for something they have no control of. I mean, that's possibly the easiest thing you can try harm someone for, simply because they have no control of it.
What I am curious about is if anyone else has seen a similar trend, regardless of gender elsewhere in the western world? I have been thinking if this is just something that is going on between mothers only, simply because they see superiority in dressing up girls and doing their hair, or carry a strange idea that boys can't get equally attached to their mother. Yes, that's actually something the woman that felt sorry for those who only had boys said. "You get closer to daughters than sons".