Now that Doodle is here, I am happy that the constant “are you having a boy or a girl?” questioning has ended. Unfortunately it’s been replaced with a new and perhaps more irritating question: “Three girls?”
I usually smile and politely reply “no, the little one is a boy” (while in my head snarkily adding “if you actually looked at the child you would clearly know that”). And then the stranger (always) says “finally!” and often also adds “now you’re done.”
It seems these days it is assumed that every American family wants two children, one of each gender. If you have more than this perfect pair, it can *probably* be attributed to one of the following reasons (per public perception): 1) you’re not careful and ended up with “oops” babies, 2) you’re some religious extremist, or 3) if your first two were of the same gender, you were “trying” for the other gender.
It is perceived hubby and I fall into the last category. Most people see us with two girls and a baby and assume we had a third child just to get a boy. Of course if you’re familiar with me, you know I really wanted another girl (and when I’m feeling especially snarky I will tell strangers this). When hubby and I decided to have another baby “trying” to have a boy was not even discussed. We are smart enough to know you get what you get and we just wanted another child, gender was not any part of having a third. Of course deep down hubby was hoping for a boy as much as I was hoping for another girl but it is not why we had a third.
So to set the record straight: We WANTED three kids, and in fact all three of our children were created 100% intentionally and we would have gladly taken 3 girls, 3 boys or whatever we got. Sure, we’ve had our preferences on what we would have liked but ultimately we wanted CHILDREN and gender doesn’t matter.
