"Million Dollar Family"

[Hbuhs]

On a social media site that I am apart of, one of my friends posted that she gave birth to her second child. Her first a boy, and now a girl.
Many people commented things such as "wow, you hit the jackpot" or "you have a million dollar family!". When I had my second son, people often said things like "You are going to have your hands full" or "so when are you going to try for that girl?"
Ouch. This hurts. I want a girl more than these people can possibly imagine. Nothing like throwing a little salt on the wound. I just think that people are so fixated on the perfect family (per say) and I know that I cave into the pressures of it. I do want a daughter but if people had less expectations and were less vocal of the "million dollar family", maybe gender disappointment would be a little less severe and it might be a bit easier to except having all one gender.
Just a thought.

[Claire33]

I totally agree. A lot of GD is fueled by our surroundings and society in general. People say so many stupid things and put pressure on people having the "perfect family" (preferably a PP and then be done). They act as if we as parents of these same sex children really don't care, or even have CHOSEN our family make up, so they can say whatever they want.

Now everyone is going on about which gender my 4th child has. I don't even feel like telling them, so I don't I just shrug and say I don't know. The pressure of having a girl this time is huge. I don't want to give them the satisfaction of it actually being a girl. I just say I don't care either way, so they stop going on about the girl-thing.

[1+2+3boys]

Sometimes I get people sounding disbelieved and shocked that my twins are BOTH boys which is silly because over half of twins are the same gender, especially identical ones like mine! I get 'if only there was one girl in there that would have been perfect' which is the way I felt but now that they are here I wouldn't change it and I agree, it does rub salt in the wound. Sometimes I have great days where I am really enjoying my family and not thinking of 'my daughter' and often I get lovely comments about my family but there are the annoying ones too which luckily I can brush off easier than I used to.

Maybe we should reply, "they are worth more than a million dollars to me" or something along those lines

[PrimalMamma]

Yep, perception has a lot to do with GD. Working through my own GD journey I discovered that a lot of the reasons I wanted a daughter was to "redo" bits of my own childhood & adolescence that I thought my own mother got wrong. Once I worked that out my GD lessened significantly.

[pink_bean]

From someone who grew up as one half of a PP, I can attest it's anything but "perfect" having to be forced to play with a sibling who a. you have no shared interests b. tells you constantly to bug off and you can't play because "you're a girl." c. Beats the crap out of you regularly (this is why I roll my eyes when pp brag about their sons protecting their little sister, although my brother did go through a protective stage when I was a teenager. )
We love each other but we aren't close. I know same sex siblings can have these same issues but I honestly think 2 brothers or 2 sisters are generally much more compatible than a pp.

My husband and I were at the park with our kids and my childhood flashed before my eyes when a pp close in age were fighting over a ball. The little boy kept telling the girl that "girls can't play" and he kept hitting her. My husband had to intervene because the parents were no where to be found. I know same sex siblings fight but not about gender.

I know all families are different, just giving my perspective. Society does really put pressure on people to have at least one of each and then be done.

[PrimalMamma]

Yes pink_bean I'm one half of a pigeon pair & while my (younger) brother & I were close growing up we have grown apart as adults. We have virtually nothing to do with one another now, not for any bad feelings but we have absolutely NOTHING in common other than our parents.

[1+2+3boys]

Recently I was at the park with my three boys having fun sliding down the hill on our board and a pigeon pair family came along. The boy was older and both must have been either side of age to my DS1 (just turned 5) And the son was starring at us the whole time begging his Mum to play with 'the boys.' It was great to let him have fun with us but I felt sorry for his Sister who he never let have a turn and they were constantly fighting. The Mum did say they were having a bad day though and she was a lovely lady who I chatted to for ages.
Just adding in so as not to only stereotype, My DP and his only sibling, a younger Sister are the closet siblings I have ever seen. I think it might be less common though?

[pink_bean]

I hope I didn't sound bitter! I do love my brother and in his defense he felt terrible about how he treated me when we were kids. I'm not mad at him in the least. I just hate how people glorify the boy/girl pp. I'm sure their are pp that get along great and I know not all same sex siblings are bffs.

The funny thing is, even though I grew up in this family makeup, I wanted ut for myself too. I guess that just shows how ingrained the idea of the "perfect" family is in our society. It's a huge pet peeve of mine to hear pp moms say they never cared about the gender, that they don't understand GD or that they get annoyed by people calling their families "perfect." Really? They have no idea how hurtful the comments same gender families have to deal with, and of course they don't understand GD since they get to experience both genders.

My MIL was so sweet when I found out I was pregnant with #2. She said "one of each is not they only perfect family. Two boys is perfect, too." This is before I knew the gender. And she had girl, boy, girl, boy. So, some people get it.

[pink_bean]

Please excuse my typos, I am sleep deprived.

[Claire33]

I'm also part of a PP, who were later joined by a baby sister. It was my brother I grew up with though. Luckily we were and still are good friends, although I'm sure for my brother's sake he would have probably had an easier time with a brother, common interests etc. My boys fight, but it's not too bad. Its mostly about who's turn it is on the iPad