In case you couldn’t gather from the hiatus, I did give birth! Labor started on its own, and all is well. More on the birth story in a later post.
I have a son and a daughter. I feel that I am most fortunate, however, to have two beautiful, healthy children.
Thus, I am furious when people say shitty things implying that my son is somehow more “precious” than my daughter. Not even 36 hours after giving birth, someone in A’s family said, “God, you’re so lucky to have a son! You don’t have to worry about birth control.” She went on, saying
I might need to grill the girl he’s dating about what she’s using, etc.
Epic fail. Given how hormonal I was immediately after, she was quite lucky I was slow to move due to the C-section and instead of throwing my pillow or a vase of flowers at her, I simply said something like, “But he WILL have to worry about birth control. It IS his responsibility, even if it doesn’t seem to directly effect him.”
Yes, that’s right. Men should be as concerned and involved about birth control decisions in a hetero-relationship as the female is. He can’t just assume she’s on the Pill.
Then there are the comments about how lucky I am to “finally” have a son. Or that I don’t need to have any other children because I have a son.
Because giving birth to a boy is the BEST thing that I, as a woman, can do.
Someone said I had a “millionaire’s family.” ??? It was said in the context, again, that I have a son, not a healthy child.
But what if he’s not healthy? Sure, everything is fine now, but what if he develops a developmental disorder? Am I still “lucky” because of his sex?
I love my daughter because of who she is. She has a fantastic personality, fun imagination, and is a compassionate person.
I love my son. He’s still new, but I can see sparkles of his personality here and there. He’s a playful guy, and I somehow feel that he’s going to be quite thoughtful.
I love them equally. They are different children; this difference has nothing to do with their sex, but who they are, who they are becoming, who they are growing to be.
So many gender-roles and responsibilities assigned to such a young, young life.
It’s tragic that some can’t celebrate my new child for the amazing little being that he is.
2 comments:
um, I do believe that I totally celebrated you and the baby who has a penis but may still be a woman upon maturing in age - we don't know the gender identity and whatever the future brings I will continue to celebrate that life! I will of course continue to celebrate you and awesome C who is to be congratulated herself on becoming a big sister and so long as A keeps himself in check I'll celebrate him, too (kidding!) I suppose.
Let loose your feelings on that nonsense these fools are saying and blame it on your hormones...
So I just now realized that you didn't say "someone" and instead said "some" AND I just now get this whole birth control thing (I was skimming too fast!!!!) it seems. I think we might need to give A's family a little bit of sex ed or something. They were all sorts of worried about E contracting some kind of STD if he wasn't circumcised or something and now this birth control thing???? Do they know about condoms? Are they aware of HIV and how that is transmitted? I feel we must do something subversive.
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