I grew up in a family in which I was the oldest of...

I grew up in a family in which I was the oldest of four girls. It never occurred to me, back when I was pregnant, that I might actually give birth to a boy — until I did. That’s how girl-centric my view of the world was.

Having sons has taught me so much about living, including how to relax and have fun. (The bizarre bathroom humour that crops up around the dinner table, night after night, starting from around the time boys are five years of age, will do that for a person.)

If I’d been asked to fill out a form to order my ideal family back when I was 24 and pregnant for the first time, I might have placed an order for all girls. But that wouldn’t have been my ideal family at all. The family I ended up with — girl, boy, boy, boy — was exactly what the psychologist ordered.

nationalpost:

Canadians want children of own gender to carry on legacy: study
Despite a cultural push to be neutral or even indifferent about the sex of their babies, university-educated Canadians overwhelmingly prefer to have a child of their own gender as they unconsciously try to create a “meme” of themselves to live on after they die, a new study suggests.

Fifty or even 20 years ago, the same study of evolutionary biology might have veered heavily in favour of boys — the traditional breadwinners, deemed to be physiologically stronger and with a greater capacity to produce more children and grandchildren. It’s a value that still exists in many parts of the world.

But the major strides made by women in modern Western society have meant there’s never been a better time to be born a girl —and women are keenly aware of it, said Lonnie Aarssen, a Queen’s University biology professor who co-authored the study with former undergraduate student Michael Higginson.

“It’s interesting to see this emergence just in my lifetime of opportunities for women to break free from that patriarchal subjugation,” he said. “And it’s being expressed as a flip now to actually favouring offspring that have potential to represent copies of themselves because they’re the same gender.”

This is particularly linked to women seeing themselves as able to leave some kind of role model legacy for their daughters because they see greater opportunities for them today, Dr. Aarssen added. (Photo: foltolia)