Anecdotal observation -- just for fun!

[MrsEnglish]

Okay, so really nothing new here, but just support for several other theories atomic already has.

I live in a community that has a lot of conservative religious folk (no premarital sex) and it's common to take birth control for a year after marriage but also common to ttc immediately.

So what I noticed is that the couples who get pregnant very soon after being together seem to have their first child be a boy. So of the couples I can think of (5) who did not have premarital sex and got pregnant within four months, all of them had first born sons. I know three couples who got pregnant in 5-6 cycles and two had first born daughters and one a first born son, so take with a grain of salt because we're talking a difference of one month here.

My little anecdotal observation: the longer that a couple has been having sex (with each other) whether ttc or using contraceptive devices, the more likely they are to have a girl.

Exception: one night stand babies tend to be girls (3 out of 3 that I know, 2 were from the same woman, different dads).

[MrsEnglish]

I'm probably really grasping at straws here, but just to add on to my statistically ridiculous anecdotes:

When couples have not had sex for a while do to birth, break up, jail, rehab, illness -- and they get back together, it sort of resets things so that a couple who have make up sex after having been apart for a couple of months are more likely to have a boy.

Very weak evidence on this, I literally can think of two examples and then extrapolated, so take with giant grain of salt!

[Throwaway_panther]

This is interesting since the working theory is more sex = more boys, and we have some mammal studies supporting this.

I think the variables you might be conflating are the sex and gender. We notice that TTC after contraception tends to sway girl, as does awhile to conceive (although I don't ascribe to the latter, especially since a pretty extensive Dutch study found longer to conceive correlated with more boys).

The religious aspect I've had thoughts on since I've had my own observations. Like I noticed a lot of famous Mormon families are boy heavy (the Osmonds are insanely boy heavy, the Romneys, the Butlers, etc.). But that's a sect known for abstaining from alcohol and some even caffeine, having unprotected sex, etc. Conversely, I live in a very Muslim heavy area and see mostly girl heavy families where alcohol is haram, but fasting, hookah, etc. are all regular parts of lifestyles.

I think overall anecdotes are still anecdotes. Such small sample sizes! My own parents totally only had sex once in a blue moon to get us 3 girls, and my in laws are well known bunnies and they had 3 boys in 3 years (after more than a decade together, half of that spent TTC!).

I have noticed as well that one night stand babies tend to be girls. But really confusingly, and troubling, I read something once that noted products of rape tended to be boys -- and that women were more likely to conceive from assault, including spontaneous ovulation :/ These are all controversial studies, too, but as a survivor myself, it's hard to forget!

[ksmom]

Meh. None of that's been true for me. DH and I had protected sex for over a year then when we decided to have a baby, we TTC'ed for about a year before conceiving DS1. DH was also in the military and it seemed even with deployments, there were still way more couples having girls than boys. It was almost absurd how many people we knew with girls. We were actually convinced at one point that we'd end up having a girl too (ha!).

[atomic sagebrush]

Meh. None of that's been true for me. DH and I had protected sex for over a year then when we decided to have a baby, we TTC'ed for about a year before conceiving DS1. DH was also in the military and it seemed even with deployments, there were still way more couples having girls than boys. It was almost absurd how many people we knew with girls. We were actually convinced at one point that we'd end up having a girl too (ha!).

I'll second the military = girls, totally something I"ve both seen IRL and heard repeatedly from swayers both pink and blue!

My "fun" anecdote of the week is that stand up comedians have more daughters. These are the thoughts that are always drifting through my mind LOL...

[Throwaway_panther]

I'll second the military = girls, totally something I"ve both seen IRL and heard repeatedly from swayers both pink and blue!

My "fun" anecdote of the week is that stand up comedians have more daughters. These are the thoughts that are always drifting through my mind LOL...

Interesting! Is that gender dependent though? I can think of so many female comedians (Ali Wong, Joan Rivers, Carol Burnett, etc.) that have all girls (if they have any kids at all!), but then offhand I know Dave Chapelle has two boys, Jerry Seinfeld has GBB. Though I know Adam Sandler and Chris Rock both have two daughters each (lol can you tell I'm into comedy that I know all their families offhand?). I swear sketch comedians are all boy heavy though! I can think of so many women and men in improv/
sketch with sons.

But damm, is my being funny what's going to undermine me?! :P

[atomic sagebrush]

Yes, as I was posting that I thought "oh I really should have clarified that by gender" I meant MALE stand up comedians but you're right that there are some good examples on the female end, and yes, all very observational/anecdotal. I'm sure tons of exceptions, I've been on a comedy kick this summer and thinking "god these guys all have tons of girls for some reason" only I said Gosh because I'm much more polite than that IRL.

Patton Oswalt, Louis CK, Bill Cosby, Bill Burr, Eddie Murphy has more daughters than sons, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler

I'm probably wrong about it, honestly. But that's the fun of observational anecdotes is you can say "Did you ever notice" and then have fun discussing it. But DON"T anyone then extrapolate this to mean that if you're funny you can't get boys or girls!! Just for fun convo