I read recently that in a 2011 Gallup survey, 49 percent of American men said that if they could have only one child, they would prefer a son. Only 22 percent chose a daughter. Gallup has conducted this poll 10 times since 1941, always with very similar results.
Good news for women and little girls alike in the United States, there has been a paradigm shift. According to 2011 research from Stanford University, once a man becomes the father of a daughter, he becomes infinitely more interested in gender equality and furthering the girl power movement.
Where do I even start? Obviously, I think it’s sexist to only want a male baby. I do, however, understand the want/need for a male child to carry on the family surname. My husband and his brother are the last of their surname line. We have two girls. There is a very good chance that the line ends with my husband and his brother, but we are grateful for our daughters.
Sure we will have to pay for two college tuitions and two weddings, but we would probably still incur that cost if we had sons. We are just thrilled to have happy, healthy children. In a world where so many have fertility issues or have experienced the loss of a child, shouldn’t we all be ecstatic to have our child, any child?
Then I look at a country like India where female fetuses are aborted, killed at birth or abandoned. No one wants to have a baby girl because she will cost the family a dowry. Ultrasounds are offered on every corner just so couples can avoid giving birth to a female child.
Can you even imagine what these mothers must be going through? They are women and they are pregnant. There is a bond that forms between a mother and her baby, even at a very early stage. Then to be pressured by her husband and society to terminate the pregnancy because the baby she is carrying inside her is female, the self-loathing must be taken to new, unimaginable heights.
I am the mother of two daughters. I absolutely adore my daughters and cannot imagine my life without them. My daughters are my world.
I think that the men of India need to realize that grown women give birth to baby boys. If the female fetuses are not allowed to be carried to term, or be born, how the hell do they expect the species to survive? Men cannot perpetuate the species on their own. Eventually, India will be no more because they chose to murder all of their baby girls.
It’s all well and good that American men are realizing, once they hold their beautiful daughters in their arms, that these little girls are worth loving and THEN wanting to insure that their daughters are afforded every luxury afforded their male counterparts. I am thrilled that society is finally recognizing baby girls are human. I am thrilled that daddies are realizing that they love their daughters enough to want them to have everything their hearts desire, or at the very least, to treat them with human kindness.
What about the little girls in other parts of the world, like the baby girls in India, who are not even given the chance to be born?
Photo Source: Wickenden
