Why are my healthy baby girls seen as not quite enough?
I am the proud mother of three beautiful, healthy daughters. I am also the doting and delighted aunty of four gorgeous, funny and clever little nieces. My mother-in-law is a grandmother to only girls – seven in total, all with ten fingers and ten toes. The women in my family are indeed lucky, we are championed by our husbands, fathers and brothers; we are proud of our families and our achievements.
However, it seems that to the world, something is missing.
When my first two daughters were born, our immediate social network felt the need to comment on the obvious lack of a son. I smiled and said that perhaps one day that would change. Then, before long, I noticed the general public dropping haphazard hints, sometimes even bleedingly obvious bombshells on my husband and I. “Oh poor daddy must feel outnumbered” and “are you going to try for a boy next?” became common threads of supermarket conversations with elderly ladies and cheery passersby alike. At first I didn’t think much of it, but as the shine of my new babies wore off and the tiredness took its toll on my body and mind, the hairs on the back of my neck began to stand on end.
Why were my healthy baby girls not quite enough? What made the combination of two daughters not sit well with others? I was thrilled, my husband over the moon, yet others had decided before they’d even investigated, that surely, we must be planning the impending birth of a son before my cervix had even returned to its usual state.
In what decade were we living where having daughters was supposed to be surpassed by the desire for a son? People’s empathic gazes were soon met with deadly evil eyes as I began to get my back up, feeling the weight of each flippant remark building up to what would soon become an inevitable tantrum.
My husband often retorted to people’s comments with defensive attacks to point out the sexist nature of their assumptions. “I’m stoked that my girls are happy and healthy,” he would say, “surely that’s enough”. It became his standard approach to the smiling passersby who clearly had no idea how offensive their tuts and head shakes were. I however would squawk at strangers “which one would you suggest I put back?” I’d ask, sometimes I’d even offend by chiming “excuse me, I didn’t realise we were still living in the ’50s”.