No, I Don’t Want a Girl

no girls allowed

There comes a point in each woman’s pregnancy when you tire of unsolicited opinions, and everrryyy mama-to-be has SOMETHING specific that really just “grinds their gears”. For me, the primary annoyance with both pregnancies was everyone’s preference for gender. Because, you know, I was taking special requests and choosing the gender with the most votes <insert eye roll emoji here>.

With my current pregnancy (our 2nd), I reached my threshold of tolerance within about 21.7 seconds of announcing it. Apparently, after you’ve already birthed one gender, you no longer get an opinion of what you might like to have in any proceeding offspring. Nope. Apparently everyone decides FOR you, and you are to accept your fate and start planning accordingly.

Unfortunately, for the 95% of our friends and family who openly expressed their hopes for a girl, I’m less of an “accept your fate” type of woman and more of a “show me the proof before I start buying ALL THE PINK” kinda gal. Although, thanks to those wonderful Wives Tales, Chinese Gender Charts and all other at home tests my grandmother swears by, I was mentally prepared for a girl. Twice. Ironically enough…

I didn’t know how much I wanted another boy, until I cried at the sight of that not-so-foreign-to-me-anymore-object doing a jig on the ultrasound screen. It was in each moment of discovering I was having boys, that I came to really understand what I had been trying to convince others of for the last 10 years of my life: I do not want a girl.

Now, hear me out before you start picketing to burn me at the stake–I would LOVE having a daughter, I’m sure. I would love nothing more than to give my husband the opportunity to forge a bond with his own daughter, as strong as the one he has witnessed between me and my own father. I ADORE my nieces and watching them grow in to the young women they are becoming. I would NEVER be “upset” about having a girl…I just simply do not want/wish/pray/jump-up-and-down-three-times-on-each-leg-with-a-frog-and-magical-fairy-dust, for one. Lemme just lay it out for you in a condensed version:

  1. I would have no clue what to do with her. Now, I’m not a tomboy in any sense of the word. However, unless it’s a formal occasion or my own wedding, I’m really good with just a laid back style. My mother didn’t have YouTube makeup tutorials with me–my mother showed me that hard work gets you from the bottom of a company, to running it. Truth talk. My mom is now a Vice President for the company she began working for when she was pregnant with ME…and she looked flawless doing it. What if I can’t teach my daughter than brains and beauty are a dynamite package, even if they aren’t “the norm”? What if she wants to play tea party and I ruin it by inviting the wrong Prince, or refusing to wear the tiara? Sooo much pressure, and I have no clue where to even start with tampons, eye liner, tutus or hateful boys. What leads me to…
  2. I want to raise gentlemen. Before I met my husband, I had lost hope in the male species. I was settling – to say the least – and was doubtful that any men my father described even existed anymore. After meeting my husband, I know that chivalry isn’t dead, and (warning: super sappy sentence to follow) all of my dreams have come true. I want to help make two future young women’s dreams of love a reality someday, when they marry my sons.  By raising them to be men of God and help redeem the male society of such negative standards, I will hopefully give faith to those watching their actions. I want them to exude kindness, loyalty, thoughtfulness and fierce love for others and their future wives. I’ll take that challenge any day, over struggling to understand why I can’t make my daughter see her amazing worth, when all she cares about is a phone call from some jerk I might never deem suitable for her. Will my boys turn out perfect? Nah. Actually, I HOPE they don’t. But if they’re even half of the men their daddy and granddaddy’s are, I’ve got great confidence that they won’t even need too much from me:) Speaking of my insecurities…
  3. I do not want a “mini me”. Seriously. There isn’t a single fiber of my being that desires to have a daughter to dress up like a doll, get manicures with, or teach about “retail therapy”. I fully plan on dragging my sons to as many off-Broadways shows as football games, and know daddy can teach them about style (mama will be of NO help in that department!). Full disclosure? Even if I do have a daughter, I pray she is nothing like me. I have a healthy fear of failure in not being able to fully verse her in important life lessons, most that I myself learned the hard way. I’m not ashamed to admit that, if I do have a daughter, I will most likely completely suck at being her mama.

The bottom line is that we all pray for healthy babies. I, personally, am not going to send any of them back based on gender, or any other “discrepancies” that might come along (nope, not even my toddler who wakes up at 5:30am requesting Oreos). I just personally feel more led to raise boys. Don’t get it twisted–so far, I don’t have a clue as to why people say they’re “easier”. In my reality, I’ll have a bond with them that would be completely foreign to me in having a daughter, just the same as my friends who couldn’t imagine being a Boy Mom. They’re all our babies from start to finish, and we always have enough love to go around. We are all just trying to achieve the same end game: survival until we can marry them off. Then…we watch them put in to action what we pray we’ve taught them all along.

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Loralei Gann
Loralei is a busy boy mom to Everett and Roman, and fabulous wife to Justin. Raised in Edmond, she became a Norman transplant after marriage and hasn't found many differences...other than the craziness that is an OU game day. A high school English teacher by day, she enjoys spending time with both sides of her hilarious (and extremely loud) family, reading, writing, cooking and shopping for down time. She thinks that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel SOMEDAY with diapers and bottles, but until then, she tries to soak up every sweet, snuggly, fit throwing, negotiating-with-a-toddler moment...and thoroughly enjoys every second of it.

5 COMMENTS

  1. Love this! The gender thing was one of my biggest annoyances from the get go!! People asking what it was/what we wanted made me realize just how inappropriate that question is–I want a healthy baby, is that too much to ask for? Haha

    • Aw, thanks!! I think I was much more annoyed with Roman (#2), only because some people absolutely didn’t even give us the option! When it was announced at church, every. single. person. said, “oh this one will be a girl. I want you to have a girl. You know you want a girl.” I just smiled and nodded, but it got really old, really quickly! It was all in good fun, but when you’re the hormonal preggo…it’s personal:)

  2. Ugh this is my biggest pet peeve. I personally have girls. People would say it’s a “shame” you’re not having a boy. Really???!! Like you said, how about a healthy baby? That’s all I care about. I actually like not having to pick :).

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