People have families. They come in all shapes and sizes. And sure you get to choose your partner, but when it comes to kids, you take what you get or whom you adopt. Sort of. I don't want to get into the whole thing about using reproductive technology to engineer specific traits into or out of our kids, but I do want to say this about gender selection done purely for the psychological needs of the parents: It Sucks.
I try not to be judgmental when it comes to how people make their families, but women going bananas because they have three healthy boys and no girls? Nuh-uh. I'm judging. But you can decide for yourself and by reading a story by Ruth Shalit Barrett about "Gender Disappointment" in this month's Elle.
Me, I've made my decisions about "GD." Not only, as XX blogger KJ Dell'Antonia points out, does the whole thing cross the line of a parent saying about a child, "I didn't want you," but a driving desire for a girl is a about a fantasy. It's not about raising an actual person who arrives in this world with a personality. It's about the dream of a very specific kind of companionship where the mother gets to call all the shots. The women who try to come off as thoughtful in the article say things like: “My desire for a daughter is not about pink or shopping. I don’t get manicures and pedicures. All that stuff isn’t important to me. Relationships are. As a woman, I have so much I want to share.” What, and she can't share any of what she has with her sons? And if she can only share with girls, then girlfriend, go out and get some girlfriends and leave your kids out of it. Seriously. It's bad.
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