US Presidents and their kids

I'm reading a non-fiction book about the Presidents' wives & their families. I'm skimming some of it and reading other parts but what I've seen thus far is that most of the U.S. presidents and their wives have had more boys than girls. DH and I were discussing it and we think that since most of them were well off financially to begin with, they ate well (many had servants even as kids themselves). There's also the personality part, more stressed and more driven equals more testosterone.

Just wanted to share what I noticed. :)

I actually did this as a homeschooling project with one of my sons (sad I know) and we found that as well.

The interesting thing is, the more modern presidents all seem to have way more daughters (and fewer children).

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Originally Posted by atomic sagebrush

I actually did this as a homeschooling project with one of my sons (sad I know) and we found that as well.

The interesting thing is, the more modern presidents all seem to have way more daughters (and fewer children).

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Yes, I noticed that too! Do you have any ideas as to why that is? I'm thinking possibly that men got more sensitive and less aggressive both physically and in their personalities compared to life in the 1700 and 1800's? Then again, my DH is the kindest and most gentlest man and we conceived 1 girl and 2 boys.

It is interesting to me though.

I think it may be something like what happened with Eleanor Roosevelt - the Roosevelts' first child was a girl and then along came 5 boys! In other words, just because Hilary Clinton had Chelsea first, it doesn't mean that she might not have had more sons than daughters overall. The fact that people are having fewer children makes it hard to observe whether or not they really are more 'set' to produce one of more gender than another.

The other thing I wonder about is whether the modern trend towards extreme thinness contributes to it somehow.