Babies and Gender

[Eeyores Butterfly]

Inspired by the nursery thread. I'm curious why parents care so much about making sure that people know their baby's gender and making sure things are geared toward that gender. The nursery thread made me curious. I have seen posts on here about people who pierced their baby's ears just so that people would quit calling the girl a boy. I'm honestly curious, why do parents care so much how their children are perceived or that outfits/decor fit the gender of their child? The child themselves does not know or care.

**Disclaimer: I don't have children and yes, I realize that maybe I'll feel differently when I do.**

 

[Piecey]

I didn't even want to know Lucas was a boy. Everyone told me I was crazy, my MIL gave me a TON of crap about it.... and DH wanted to know.
I gave in, we found out, and I'm grateful-- but I didn't do it so that everything could be BLUE!

It is a bit ridiculous...but most people center on the gender.

 

[ZephyrHawk]

Not only do I refuse to know the sex of my first child until it's born, I know I will have to instruct all doctors/techs/etc to not tell DH, because HE will try to weasel the answer out of them...if for no other reason than to torture me. After that, I have no intention of making a big deal about gender. I also don't care if other people are confused. Let them be. In fact, our favorite girl's name comes with a male-ish nickname that we intend to use. As for nursery colors, I haven't given it that much thought, but I certainly wouldn't choose a color based on the baby's sex. I suppose I wouldn't want an all pink room for a boy (though blue would be fine for a girl)...but then I wouldn't want an all pink room period. Ugh.

 

[Breezie]

I used to be quite against putting a kid into specific 'gender roles' or what have you. But I now realize, to me at least, it's not as big of a deal as I used to make it. I'm not screwed up for having a pink room when I was little, my [hypothetical] children won't be either.

And really, I like to be planned out and having things in order. So I think, if and when I get pregnant, I'd like to know the gender so I can plan accordingly.

But who knows how you'll really feel when you're pregnant? I might change my mind.

 

[bumbershoot]

We never even had a nursery for DS, so even if we'd wanted to find out, it wouldn't have mattered. Family bed from the beginning and still (though we're about to change that b/c he's ready for it! Exciting times 'round here).

We didn't find out "what" he was before nature allowed; didn't even have an ultrasound, b/c it didn't matter at all for any reason.

I will admit that it got old, as DS turned into a toddler, that people always assumed that long curly hair = girl, then a bad hair trim turned into a short haircut and the "problem" went away...and I realized how it wasn't a problem at all. Why did I care, I have no idea. My parents were hippies, I'm definitely not the opposite of a hippie, his hair was stunning...I don't know why it bothered me.

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

The nursery thing isn't a huge deal. However, if I think a gender neutral color is nice looking, I'm not going to forgo it just so that the color will match the gender. And yeah, it's fun dressing little girls in cute frilly outfits, but I don't *think* I would have an issue if somebody thought my little girl was a little guy or vice versa. What really gets me is the parents who say they pierce their daughters' ears just so people will know they are a girl. It seems a bit much to me to put an infant through a somewhat painful procedure (and the risk of infection/ripping out) that serves no other purpose than to clue somebody into your child's gender!

 

[Avalon_toon]

Cultural cues are an important part of how we communicate with each other in society - body language, color cues, hair styles, etc. Whether we like it or not, these things ARE a way we communicate - messages are sent, and received, by these things. And babies are very non-communicative - there is very little a baby can "say" about themselves to people who meet them - so when people meet a baby, they look for cues about gender as a way of knowing something about the child, giving them a sense of connectedness to at least this one aspect of the child. If they don't find any cultural cues to tell them what gender the baby is, or if they find cues that lead them to "read" the gender message incorrectly, they will make wrong assumptions. The baby of course won't be bothered by this until they are older - 2 years or so - but parents will be bothered because gender is an essential and integral part of their child, and its irritating to have people misunderstand your child, no matter what the reason. So, I don't think you should have to pierce a girl's ears to signal gender - a pink pair of socks or a hair bow will usually do the trick - but I do understand the impulse to communicate your child's gender to others.

 

[Plantlady]

We wanted to know, not for the nursery, but for our own curiosity. It's a surprise no matter what point in the pregnancy/delivery you find out what the sex of the baby is.

With DS12.. they couldn't tell during the earlier ultrasounds. There were complications at the end of the pregnancy, and I got an ultrasound at 41 weeks (he was two weeks overdue). They could tell then, but DIDN'T want to tell us.. told us, we waited this long..we could wait a bit longer. We argued a bit, and learned he was a "he", one week before he was born. As a toddler, he had long curls, and was thought to be a girl. We never corrected anyone. It didn't hurt anything.

DS10. They couldn't tell. My gut thought he was a girl. My gut was wrong.

DS7. They told us around 5 months. I was happy to prepare his big brothers with the news it was another boy.

Now, complete side note.. with DS12.. I knew that it wasn't an absolute.. when we were told. Anyway, his birth was a rough one, he was rushed off right after he was born, I didn't see him for several hours. He was born at 1am. Nothing much was told to me.. except the baby was going to be ok.

Around 6 am, a nurse came in, wolk me up and told me my DAUGHTER was hungry. I answered her quite groggily.. that no one told me for sure, but I am pretty sure I have a son. I won't even start to think.. about how messed up THAT was.

 

[NMAmy]

While pregnant with dd, I did not want to know the gender. When my sister heard that, she told me, "Figures. You never peeked at Christmas gifts, either." I like to be surprised. Plus I know a lot of family members who were told their baby was one gender but got a HUGE surprise when the baby was born. It's happened often enough to people I know for me to not really trust the ultrasound.

As to the nursery colors and making sure people knew she was a girl--it wasn't a biggie for me. I tended to follow my mom's lead and dressed her in red a lot--little girls with dark hair and dark eyes look good in red. But we did live in New Mexico with extremely warm weather so she wore a lot of dresses since they're cool. I don't remember anyone ever mistaking her for a boy so I can't tell you how I would have reacted for sure but I don't think it would have bothered me.

 

[Tiggerlover91]

Hubby and I didn't want to know DS's gender til he was born. Our nursery was done with a neutral theme and all clothes that were purchased were also gender neutral. Once my son was born, I did buy him "boy" clothes. Because I wanted people to know he was a boy....no....because it was FUN to do so! One of the outfits he used to have looked like a military BDU and it said MAJOR CUTIE on it! THAT'S why I bought my son gender specific clothes!

 

[clgwli]

I wanted to know the sex of my baby so we could either keep arguing about one set of name or not. We had one set of names associated with one sex but not the other.

What actually irks me is when people say they want to find out the gender of a baby. Gender is not the same thing as the sex of the baby and has to do with actions, not physical organs

Sorry that's a pet peeve of mine.

That said if you look around there is not a lot of clothing that is neutral in looks. Especially past about 3 months of age. They just simply do not make a lot of clothing like that. It makes it really hard for people to buy gifts for an older child (which is highly appreciated by parents) unless you know if it is boy or girl.

I did not do a nursery with a boy or a girl in mind. I figure the child usually wants their own things a few years later so I created a room knowing it is very neutral and we will change it when the child wants a change.

We don't follow gender roles in general so figuring out the sex of babies wasn't about anything other than buying the right clothing.

 

[WDWBarb]

I think if circumstances would have been different, I wouldn't have wanted to know the gender of our DD before she was born. My MIL was sick and dying of cancer when I was pregnant and we weren't sure she'd make it to see the birth of her first grandchild. She wanted that baby so badly and we wanted her to at least know the gender.

Unfortunately, many ultrasounds later (my doctor knew the situation and did quite a few, trying to help us), we never knew that she was a girl until she was born. She had those legs crossed tight and the doctor could never tell us for certain. Because he knew that MIL wanted a granddaughter more than anything, he ended up telling her that's what he thought we were having.

MIL passed away 3 weeks before DD was born. Turns out that the doctor didn't lie.. we had our girl.

But if the situation was different, I wouldn't have wanted to know.

 

[Sorsha]

I didn't care to know the gender of DD14, but my mom really wanted to know. She promised that if I would let the doc tell her, she wouldn't tell me, or anyone else. In her defense, she didn't. But one day I ran into her at a yard sale and she had her arms full of tiny little frilly pink dresses. Cat-out-of-bag moment.

After that, with subsequent DDs, I wanted to know. I had a ton of definitively "girl" clothes and baby things to be passed down from prior DDs, and if the next baby were to have been a boy, I would have needed time to shop and prepare.

I am a planner, and like to have my ducks in a nice, tidy row. Nothing annoys me more than having an "unknown" in the equation. I get more and more stringent on this as I age, so by the time I was PG with DD6, I was SO impatient to know the gender of the baby, that waiting for that crucial ultrasound about killed me.

 

[hulagirl87]

I'm pregnant with our first child and I always thought that I would not want to find out. But, going out shopping it is very hard to find gender neutral things. Even pacifiers are either girl colors or boy colors! I want to find out because I want to be able to plan and have some things ready. Our nursery will still be yellow because I think that is a calming color and if we end up having a second child it won't be geared to boy or girl.

 

[IDoDis]

I didn't want to know with both of my kids. I didn't care about finding gender-specific things and the nursery worked for a boy or a girl. I figured there would be plenty of time for princess and pirate clothes for years to come. I was given pretty big baby showers and still ended up with very cute non-gender sleepers and onesies which is basically all they wore the first few weeks anyway.

The good part about people not knowing if we were having a boy or a girl, was that I didn't get too many clothes that the baby would never be able to wear. Instead, I got other things like bouncy & bath seats, a stroller, a car seat, a highchair, baby rattles, books, tons of diapers, a framed thing where we put the baby's footprint in plaster... So many great things. People got way more creative with their gifts. When I go to showers and when people know it's a boy or a girl, the recipient ends up with 30 outfits all in a size 0-3 months, most of which never get worn and 25 pink receiving blankets.

I had a girl first and then a boy. When DS was a baby, I had enough newborn stuff to pass down to him from DD since it wasn't gender specific. However, since DD was born in the spring, I didn't have any heavy sleepers. DS was born at the end of February where it usually starts warming up into the mid-50s. But, we hit a cold snap in mid-March. My FIL went to the mall to find a warm sleeper for DS, but by this time of the year, all of the winter stuff was gone and the shelves were full of spring items. He managed to find one warm fuzzy footed sleeper for DS, but it was pink! We put DS in it and took lots of pictures (blackmail for later on ). He wore that pink sleeper for about a week.

 

[Mom2Nick]

What actually irks me is when people say they want to find out the gender of a baby. Gender is not the same thing as the sex of the baby and has to do with actions, not physical organs

Sorry that's a pet peeve of mine.

People saying they want to find out the gender are using the correct word. Gender can be used to describe a person's sex as well as their traits towards female/male tendancies.

 

[boltfans]

I personally didn't choose a nursery color based on what my kid was, or the carseat, stroller, etc. In fact, we reused most things from my daughter to son so they were all pretty neutral. I did like knowing what I was having in advance though. I had a ton of white, yellow, and green sleepers for my daughter before I knew what she was and was ready to move on to other colors.

As for why people care if others can tell if their kid is a boy or a girl, I'll tell you what my friend said. She had a son first and everyone thought he was a girl. She felt that meant he looked feminine in some way and wanted him to look like a little man. Then she had a daughter who was constantly mistaken for a boy (despite the pink and purple!) and she felt that meant she was ugly/had masculine features. Logically she knew that wasn't true, she said that herself, but those were the emotions the comments evoked and it really made her sad, like there was something wrong with her kid.

In my case, I honestly never cared much. My daughter was mistaken for a boy a few times as an infant and I think it was because she did not have much hair. My son was never mistaken for a girl, but a lot of people told me he was "too cute to be a boy", whatever that means.

 

[Nette]

What's funny is, I knew I was having a girl (and you should've heard the cheer go up in the sonogram room -- I was the last girl born in my family)... and I SWORE up and down that I wouldn't dress her in pink and ruffles. But guess what... she looked SOO cute in pink (still does). We had a few outfits that were very "boyish" that I liked as well. My favorite was a white onesie with a tree embroidered on it with a pair of green pants. And I loved putting jeans and overalls on her in the "winter".

But you know what? Most people still screw up and call your baby the opposite sex. I couldn't believe it when she was wearing a PINK onesie covered in flowers and someone told me what a cute little boy I had. Seriously? Are you blind? Not that it matters. She doesn't know about it, and she isn't any less (or more) girly than she would be if that person never said anything to her.

I did have a somewhat girly nursery. I painted the room a pale green (not girly) that was from the Laura Ashley line because it coordinated well with the (pretty girly) Laura Ashley fabrics I made her bedding from...

 

[worm761]

I found out with my DS13 and I found out with the one due in December. For DS, I really did not like mint green and yellow. Back then they were the only two colors available for gender neutral. With this one, I found out she was a girl because it is so hard to find neutral stuff! It is either very boy or very girl. Not a whole lot of in between. Shopping is no fun when you can't buy much. White onsies...ooooh fun! Now the problem I have is he keeps picking out pink stuff while I go for the purples, blues, reds, anything but pink. Pink is one of my least favorite colors. DD's stroller is neutral but that is because that is all that Peg Perego sells. The pack and play is also neutral but is the one that I like.

 

[clgwli]

oops... sorry wrong thread