My family dynamics - boy vs girl

Sorry for this long post.. but it feels good to put it somewhere..
I dont know about you guys but ive been looking at families in the street for the past few weeks, looking at the gender of kids and boy/girl ratio and its so interesting. I started thinking about my 'family tree' and who has boys/girls :giggle: I realized myself and my uncle (moms brother) are the only ones with same gender kids) also, seem to be more girls and pigeon pairs!

Starting with me, im one of 3 children. My mom had 2 girls then a boy.

Me - i have an older sister and a younger brother - My sister was not planned
My sister had 1 girl, 1 boy (pigeon pair) Boy was unplanned
My brother had - one girl, one boy (pigeon pair) Girl was not planned
Me - 2 boys

My mom - has an older sister and a younger brother
My mom's sister had - 1 boy, 1 girl (pigeon pair)
My mom's sisters son - has 1 boy and 1 girl (pigeon pair) - Girl was not planned
My mom's brother - 2 boys
My mom's mom (My gran) had 2 sisters, 1 brother
My mom's dad had 1 sister (so they were pigeon pair)

My dad - had 3 sisters
My dad's eldest sister had 1 boy, 1 girl (pigeon pair)
My dad's second sister past away at 25 and his other sister had only 1 daughter - Girl was not planned
My dad's mom was 1 of 11 brothers and sisters :suprise: - mixed boys and girls, mostly girls
My dad's dad was an only child

Interestingly though - my sister remarried and had her son (had daughter with first husband) My gran remarried and also had her son (2 girls with first husband)

My DH side:
DH has a sister (they are pigeon pair)
DH's mom had a brother (they are pigeon pair)
DH's moms brother had one boy and one girl (pigeon pair)
DH's dad had 2 sisters and 1 brother


Fingers crosses for my girl :wink: (dont know how i managed to convince my DH to have another one)

Feel free to add yours.. im finding this so interesting x

Gender doesn't run in families, of this I am well and truly convinced!

Me - I'm an only child, parents divorced and remarried I have 4 sons 1 daughter
Mom and stepdad - GB, both of which have pigeon pair
Dad and stepmom - G, childless by choice

Dad - only child of people from equally mixed B/G families

Now, here is where it gets interesting.

My mom - GBB family has GGB, her brothers both have one daughter
Grandma on that side is one of 6 girls 2 boys but all the sisters and cousins all have pretty even split B/G between the lot of them
Grandpa on that side is one of 17 children, one dude with 3 different wives (death not divorce) and pretty even B/G split
(and that is a butt ton of people let me just say that)

Hubs - One of BG pair, his sister is childless by choice, we have 4 sons 1 daughter together
Hubs' mom - 3B1G, all have pigeon pairs or childless by choice
Hubs' dad - 5B1G, all have pigeon pairs or childless by choice, and all THEIR decendants (hubs cousins) have pigeon pairs, GG (only one set), or BGG

Hubs' dad was one of three boys but married a woman who was one of three girls.

So of all these people who come from families with tons of girls or tons of boys, only DH and I have all the boys. EVen though so many people told us "oh it's genetic" because of my husband's father's and grandfather's family, literally NONE of the other descendants have even 2 boys except us!! And I say that is one heck of a set of selective genes that skipped over all those other people to settle on US. :)

One thing I find helpful in these kinds of posts is to mention the Duggars. They had a run of B/G combined, then a run of boys, then a run of girls, all of which are longer than most of us and our ancestors even had KIDS LOL. So when we go looking at our families and people had like one or two kids, it really isn't that informative, because we never know what would have happened if they had had more kids, it would seem a lot more obvious that it cannot be coming down to genetics really. :)

1 of 17 kids, wow!! Your family also have a fair amount of pigeon pairs. I dont see much of this these days, if i think of my friends and kids with siblings in my sons school etc - seems very much BB or GG .. but i guess - like you say, who knows what the outcome would have been had they had more children. (i never actually thought of that before) I used to think it was in the genes but i realized after my second son it simply is not. I assumed i would have one of each just like everyone else in my family. Silly me!!

Ive been bugging my mom all day for information on her lifestyle and diet when she had us 3 but it was 30 something years ago so she said she needs to think about it :bigsmile:

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Originally Posted by atomic sagebrush

One thing I find helpful in these kinds of posts is to mention the Duggars. They had a run of B/G combined, then a run of boys, then a run of girls, all of which are longer than most of us and our ancestors even had KIDS LOL. So when we go looking at our families and people had like one or two kids, it really isn't that informative, because we never know what would have happened if they had had more kids, it would seem a lot more obvious that it cannot be coming down to genetics really. :)

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I think they are VERY helpful to think about in terms of sex ratio for so many reasons!

Firstly, because as you mentioned if you have two or three kids that isn't a very big sample and it certainly doesn't mean that after two or three of one sex you aren't capable of having the opposite.

Secondly, it can help you reframe your gender disappointment. If you went on to have many children odds are you would have at least one or two of the other sex but for many valid reasons most of us limit our family size and that creates pressure. I feel better about it when I think of it as a choice I've made rather than something that was inflicted upon me. (Yes, I know this sounds like total controlling boy-mom stuff.)

Lastly, the Duggars have balanced sexes in their family but even large families that don't can often give you a reassuring peek into sex ratio. My maternal grandmother was a TEXTBOOK Martha and also had OCD, which supposedly sways blue. Of her eight children three were girls, five were boys. Maybe some of us have qualities that sway in one direction or another but that doesn't mean that if you went on having children you would be unable to have any children at all of the less likely sex. Chances are you would just not have as many.

Couldn't help but think about that lady in the US who has 13 boys !! While by number 13 the Duggar's had their mixed gender amazing :-)

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Originally Posted by more pink

Couldn't help but think about that lady in the US who has 13 boys !! While by number 13 the Duggar's had their mixed gender amazing :-)

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

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But it makes the news because it is so very rare!

trifecta yes exactly! The pressure comes because we DON'T want to "Duggar it out" as my friend used to say. :)

Also this family 13 b, 1 g!! The Arndt Family

The reason we sway is to just hopefully make it happen a little sooner rather than later! But EVERYONE can have both boys and girls, because it would be a very dumb gene that hooks itself exclusively to one gender (especially boys!) It would die out the first time that a war came along and most of the males got killed off.