Genetics and swaying

[besjoux]

I found this article a few months back. I understand that environmental factor's come into play, however, I still wonder. What does your family consist of?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1211121835.htm

DH's family......

his Mother only has sisters but those sister's have a mix of boys and girls
his Father only has a brother. His brother has 2 boys and 2 girls and his Dad has 3 boys. DH's brothers (and DH) have only produced boys. However, the wives (myself included) came from a family of ONLY girls! Neither of us have any brothers.

My Family

As stated, I only have a sister. My Dad has all sisters (4 total). My Mom has a brother.

Sooooo, looking back in my family it seems as though the men really seem to decide the sex. It's very strong in my heritage and DH's that women had no say in the matter. Does this make any sense?

If I sway and have another boy I believe it could prove this theory somewhat. Not that I don't have faith in swaying, just that I also believe Men seem to have a strong decision on what sex is decided. It goes back so many generations in our family.

[rainbowflower]

My DHs father had 2 sons with his first wife (my DHs half brothers) and then two girls, my DH, and then another girl with his 2nd wife. So 50-50 for my FIL.

My dad had 4 daughters, and his dad (my grandpa) had boy-girl-boy. the girl (my aunt) died at birth, but my uncle had a girl then a boy... so he follows that pattern

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[ELP]

I am from 3 boys 3 girls (The last boy was my dad's with my step-mum all the rest his and my mums)
My dad is from 3 boys 3 girls
My mum is from 7 boys 7 girls
My bro has 1 boy 1 girl
My sis had 2 boys 3 girls
I have 3 boys 5 girls
My sis has 2 id girls
My bro has 1 boy
Lil bro yet to score!

So we came from and have achieved pretty balanced families.

[atomic sagebrush]

I found this article a few months back. I understand that environmental factor's come into play, however, I still wonder. What does your family consist of?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1211121835.htm

DH's family......

his Mother only has sisters but those sister's have a mix of boys and girls
his Father only has a brother. His brother has 2 boys and 2 girls and his Dad has 3 boys. DH's brothers (and DH) have only produced boys. However, the wives (myself included) came from a family of ONLY girls! Neither of us have any brothers.

My Family

As stated, I only have a sister. My Dad has all sisters (4 total). My Mom has a brother.

Sooooo, looking back in my family it seems as though the men really seem to decide the sex. It's very strong in my heritage and DH's that women had no say in the matter. Does this make any sense?

If I sway and have another boy I believe it could prove this theory somewhat. Not that I don't have faith in swaying, just that I also believe Men seem to have a strong decision on what sex is decided. It goes back so many generations in our family.

First of all, I've said this on another thread but just to restate for those who haven't seen it, the study mentioned above in the article is simply a study where researchers went back and counted the number of boys and girls that were born into a family and found that yes, some families did tend to have more boys or more girls than could be statistically explained. NO such gene was ever found, the idea of a "gene" controlling gender is entirely speculation on the part of the researcher. A geneticist would scoff at that statement because it is extremely unlikely that gender ratio could come down to a gene.

I really need a seperate thread on this and so I'm not going to go into this in great depth right now due to lack of time, but it is highly unlikely that a gene or genes is controlling for gender for several scientific reasons. In a nutshell it's because it would be a pretty disadvantageous gene to have - the first time a war came around and the men died off (which happened many a time in the history of humanity) the gene would be a complete dead end. Most of the men who have been born, died without leaving a single offspring and so for those of us who "make boys", we would be at a much greater disadvantage than those who "make girls". It would be much more advantageous to be able to alter your gender ratio to favor the offspring with the best shot at survival to adulthood.

However, there could def. be genetic factors (such as, height) that might sway a certain direction but these genetic factors only last as long as they stay in the gene pool...so if a tall couple (more likely to conceive sons) had 3 tall and one short son, the short son would STILL be more likely to father daughters than the tall sons are because there ARE no genes for gender. So looking at your family, it can really seem like genes are determining gender, but really it is other things going on (even other genes) that are doing so.

In my family, my grandma is from one of 6 girls, 2 boys. The girls went onto have both boys and girls in about 50-50. My grandpa is from a very boy-heavy family with over a dozen kids. They had a girl and two boys and my uncles both went onto father one daughter each. The girl, my mom, had two girls and a boy, the boy had a girl and the girls had boys (so right away, if it's coming from the father's side, my grandpa was from a very boy heavy family but all his sons and grandson have fathered only girls.) On the other side, my dad fathered two daughters one of which has no kids and I have the four boys (my grandma was one of a pigeon pair, and of course, my dad had a dad who fathered a son, who had a dad who fathered a son, who had a dad who fathered a son, and so on, so there again, it just can't be that men who make boys, pass that gene down.)

In my husband's family, his grandpa (had 4 bros and three sisters) and grandma (one of three girls) had 5 b and 1 g. That generation all had pigeon pairs and then the kids of that generation all had pigeon pairs, except us, with 4 boys. That is one heck of a selective gene to skip over all those people and just hit us, two generations later.

Then, on his mom's side, there were 3 boys and one girl (DH's mom, had pigeon pair) and two of the boys had both boys and girls and the other boy never had any kids.

You know, if you look at a family like the Duggars, you can see a long run of boys, a long run of girls, and a long run of both boys and girls. Any one of these runs is more kids than most of us ever even HAVE!! If there was any kind of gene going on that is causing men to have more of one gender than another, you would not see these long runs of one gender, than long runs of another gender, then both, that the Duggars have.

[besjoux]

Interesting about the Duggars. Now I wonder what she did differently between runs LOL

I am a little new here so I haven't been able to read all of the information yet. I have so much more to read. I hope I didn't cause problems by posting this. I was really curious. My family setup is rather interesting in that all the guys make boys despite that the women they marry come from strong female backgrounds.

[atomic sagebrush]

No, not at all, I LOVE questions and talking about the science is my fave topic!! I hope it put your mind at ease a bit in terms of being "destined" or "doomed" to have only one gender, because it's just not what the facts seem to indicate.

[nicnee1976]

I don't believe in this.
I have 1 brother and 1 sister
DH has 1 half brother and 1 half sister from his Dad
My mum is from a family of 3 boys and 3 girls.
My Dad has 2 sisters.
My siblings do not have kids yet, but DH's have a mix of genders.
I would say in my generation there were more girls than boys in my family and in my kids generation more boys than girls, but only a slight imbalance.