Having a Gender Preference

Friday 14th of December 2012 | Category: Pregnancy News | Written by: Siobhan Thomas

What are you hoping for, a girl or a boy?

This is one of the most common questions you get asked during pregnancy. Most people probably don't really expect you to respond with a serious bias for a particular sex. It's just one of those questions that have become a staple when it comes to pregnancy chat, and of course people love to try and second guess the baby's sex based on the size of your bump, its shape, the severity of your morning sickness and several other old wives' tales.

What are the chances anyway?

In the UK, naturally conceived pregnancies have an approximate 51% probability of providing a boy, 49% a girl. The odds are slightly altered by the gender of previous children, particularly if you have already had two children of the same sex - in which case your chances of conceiving the same again increases by about 1-2 percentage points. Essentially though, it's fair to look at the odds as pretty much even. Not bad odds for a flutter but I wouldn't bet my house on them.

There are always the exceptions to prove the rule

You often hear of families with 4 or 5 sons who just can't conceive a girl, or the other way around. This week the Jenkins family who live at Tycroes near Ammanford in Carmarthenshire are reported to have had the first baby girl born to the family in 150 years!

Is it OK to have a preference?

Esther Walker, wife of celebrity food critic Giles Coren, sparked some angry reactions this week by admitting that she is actually disappointed to be expecting a baby boy. Whilst her article is undoubtedly as much a plea for media attention as it is a show of her laughable priorities in life, it does raise the question: is it alright to want one over the other? Well yes, it's fine to prefer the idea of a girl because you think you will relate to her better, or a boy because you find the male stereotypical teenager easier to contemplate than the female one. But in my opinion, where it becomes not alright is if you would actually feel disappointed at having the alternative sex. If disappointment is a genuine possibility you ought not to have got pregnant in the first place.

Why do people wish for one gender over another?

Fortunately our cultural practices in the UK do not dictate a national preference for boys as exists in countries such as China and India. However, individuals often do have a stronger desire to have a particular sex of baby, usually based on their perceptions of life with a son vs. a daughter and their own personal family experiences. Typically people cite reasons such as:

Wanting a son for sports related reasons (or 'for Daddy')
Wanting a daughter to do more 'girly' things with such as shopping and dressing them nicely
Wanting 'one of each' for balance

Of course, most of these reasons are misguided and based on unreliable stereotypes. Esther Walker describes boys as 'gross' and says that 'they are obsessed by toilets'. Not only is this quite a strange thing to say but if she's right then my daughters (and many other people's) are suffering from some kind of gender confusion given some of their less lady-like habits and my 1 year old's belief that the toilet bowl is a hand basin made for little people.

Can I truthfully say that I didn't have a preference?

No. Before I had children I couldn't shake the nagging idea in my head that I wouldn't do as good a parenting job with girls as I would do with boys, and based on that I did hope I would have sons. I admit (reluctantly) to being a fairly 'challenging' teenager and I didn't like the idea of history repeating itself. As soon as I saw that I had a daughter those thoughts vanished from my mind and I was actually pretty ashamed to have had them at all. By my second pregnancy I had no preference at all. The experience of being a mother, and of sadly having had close friends who's experiences of pregnancy and childbirth had given them very serious issues to worry about made me truly appreciate the importance of a happy healthy family. Gender is utterly unimportant.