![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Apr. 30th, 2009 12:03 pmThis is sort of mind-boggling to read. OH NOES, not a girl! They're all alien creatures to me! Even though I am one myself!
When Hannah was born, my grandmother sighed "Oh, well, it's always disappointing when it's a girl, but you love 'em anyway." I mean, I get it -- she came from a time when boys were valued more than girls. Her father longed for sons to help with the farm work, but he ended up with five daughters instead (I never met the man, as he died long before I was born, and my Grandmother assured me he was "the greatest man who ever lived," but I can't help feeling a bit of schadenfreude about his inability to make boys.)
Obviously, we weren't disappointed that Hannah was a girl (nor were we disappointed, when Collin was born 19 months later, that he was a boy.) I've never really understood having a preference for one gender. Sure, there are slightly different experiences involved in parenting each gender (parents of girls don't need to consider whether or not to have circumcision done, for example), but people, they aren't different species.
That sort of attitude makes me think of the writing on Supernatural, where little girls are almost always creepy, scary creatures that bewilder our heroes. Boys, on the other hand, are generally seen in a completely different manner.
( Spoiler for last week's Supernatural )
When Hannah was born, my grandmother sighed "Oh, well, it's always disappointing when it's a girl, but you love 'em anyway." I mean, I get it -- she came from a time when boys were valued more than girls. Her father longed for sons to help with the farm work, but he ended up with five daughters instead (I never met the man, as he died long before I was born, and my Grandmother assured me he was "the greatest man who ever lived," but I can't help feeling a bit of schadenfreude about his inability to make boys.)
Obviously, we weren't disappointed that Hannah was a girl (nor were we disappointed, when Collin was born 19 months later, that he was a boy.) I've never really understood having a preference for one gender. Sure, there are slightly different experiences involved in parenting each gender (parents of girls don't need to consider whether or not to have circumcision done, for example), but people, they aren't different species.
That sort of attitude makes me think of the writing on Supernatural, where little girls are almost always creepy, scary creatures that bewilder our heroes. Boys, on the other hand, are generally seen in a completely different manner.
( Spoiler for last week's Supernatural )
