So I'm a bit late to the debate. But that is just par for the course these days. I am the woman who discovered Oasis about a year ago, and am just getting to grips with wedges - so you know, forgive me.
It all started when Esther Walker wrote an article in the hideous Daily Wail - stating her fears about perhaps having a baby boy. Ironically - or sadly, not so ironically for them - the Mail then got it's maternity bra in a twist along with 3 million other yummy mummies and they all poured vitriol and contempt on this woman for daring to speak of the ultimate taboo....
Every woman wants a daughter. Unless they are one of those mens' women types (the kind that only talk to the men in the office - and when I say talk, I mean flirt - they try to be one of the lads and spend most waking hours putting down and belittling other women) and I don't trust them at all. Women understand women - ergo they want to have a mini me. Boys are a totally different species - they like dirt and football and wee in arcs. A whole new world. So whether or not we admit it, most women find the thought of having a girl somewhat easier.
So, Husband had found out the sex of our first born - and I decided to keep in the dark - wanting the 'surprise' - not realising that motherhood is so much of a fucking shock to the system that one should really be as mentally prepared as possible. I used to quiz him, try and trip him up, threaten and cajole him into telling me - but he is very good at keeping secrets.( Maybe not such a brilliant skill for marriage - but let's move on). Then I persuaded a policeman I happened to know, to interrogate Husband - as although I had opted to NOT know - there were many times I was curious. (Woman who is fickle - shocker). I dreamt of tutu skirts and stripey tights, glitter and hair bobbles... The Bobby reported back that it would be a girl, for sure. Hurrah! Acupuncturist said the same. As did dodgy fortune teller. I breathed a sigh of relief.
And then I had a son.
As I lay there on the operating table - drugged to the eyeballs, with my half shaven nether regions smiling at surgeons like a garden gnome, and my boobs hitting the floor, I struggled to compute what I had just heard. A... boy???
I cried silent tears and the midwife/nurse/someone in a blue gown, held my hand and said 'yes, yes you have a beautiful son.' Yet I sobbed more - not for the son I had, but for the daughter I had expected. I rang my Mother the minute I was out of theatre, just before a midwife clamped my baby to my boob - and said 'Mum, it's a boy.' My Mum started to yell with joy and I remember saying, 'no...Mum... a boy.' She replied 'and you will love him all the same.'
I am ashamed to say, I honestly wasn't sure I would. I was so determined to have a girl that this curve ball totally stopped me in my tracks. The whole future I had planned disappeared, as I lay there, catheter in and suppositories planted. I had to grieve the child I had wanted before I could celebrate the one I had had. I genuinely remember Husband looking at me all teary eyed and saying 'we have a son' and if I hadn't been so wired to machines, I would have thumped him. He let me believe we were having all things pink...
Now before the finger waggers start wagging - I'd like to say that my son is the love of my life. Easily the greatest joy and surprise I could ever have wished for. And, in subsequently having a daughter - who refuses to wear any freakin' tutus and loves cars - I can totally appreciate the joy in both sexes. Second time round - I came prepared - but would have been totally happy to have another boy - as Sproglet showed me just how amazing sons can be.
He used to wake at 9:30am when he was 18 months. In fact I used to complain when he woke at 8:30am. I would go back and slap myself if I could, I assure you. He is the easiest child in the world to mind - he is happy to play alone, or be a team member; he goes to bed and then sleep with ease; he has exemplary manners; he is ridiculously social and full to the brim with empathy for others. He gives the best hugs and is wildly affectionate. I won't lie - potty training was my Vietnam - but bar this - he has been the dreamiest kid to parent. When Sproglette was born we dusted the 'toddler taming' book off the shelf and set to studying it like we had an A level the next day. She who must be obeyed had arrived. Sproglet acquiesces. We try not to.
So Esther - fear not. Yes, your life may soon involve trucks and Ben 10 and football and a lot of volume control - it will also be full of spontaneous hugs and simplicity - as boys are one thought - one action. They are hungry - they eat. They are tired - they sleep. Not all the over thinking, deeply calculating, endless procrastination of girls. Let's face it, you married one boy* - another is a doddle. Oh and for all those who abused your searing honesty?
Load of old cock...
*(I say this not just of your critic Husband, but of all men....)
It all started when Esther Walker wrote an article in the hideous Daily Wail - stating her fears about perhaps having a baby boy. Ironically - or sadly, not so ironically for them - the Mail then got it's maternity bra in a twist along with 3 million other yummy mummies and they all poured vitriol and contempt on this woman for daring to speak of the ultimate taboo....
Every woman wants a daughter. Unless they are one of those mens' women types (the kind that only talk to the men in the office - and when I say talk, I mean flirt - they try to be one of the lads and spend most waking hours putting down and belittling other women) and I don't trust them at all. Women understand women - ergo they want to have a mini me. Boys are a totally different species - they like dirt and football and wee in arcs. A whole new world. So whether or not we admit it, most women find the thought of having a girl somewhat easier.
So, Husband had found out the sex of our first born - and I decided to keep in the dark - wanting the 'surprise' - not realising that motherhood is so much of a fucking shock to the system that one should really be as mentally prepared as possible. I used to quiz him, try and trip him up, threaten and cajole him into telling me - but he is very good at keeping secrets.( Maybe not such a brilliant skill for marriage - but let's move on). Then I persuaded a policeman I happened to know, to interrogate Husband - as although I had opted to NOT know - there were many times I was curious. (Woman who is fickle - shocker). I dreamt of tutu skirts and stripey tights, glitter and hair bobbles... The Bobby reported back that it would be a girl, for sure. Hurrah! Acupuncturist said the same. As did dodgy fortune teller. I breathed a sigh of relief.
And then I had a son.
As I lay there on the operating table - drugged to the eyeballs, with my half shaven nether regions smiling at surgeons like a garden gnome, and my boobs hitting the floor, I struggled to compute what I had just heard. A... boy???
I cried silent tears and the midwife/nurse/someone in a blue gown, held my hand and said 'yes, yes you have a beautiful son.' Yet I sobbed more - not for the son I had, but for the daughter I had expected. I rang my Mother the minute I was out of theatre, just before a midwife clamped my baby to my boob - and said 'Mum, it's a boy.' My Mum started to yell with joy and I remember saying, 'no...Mum... a boy.' She replied 'and you will love him all the same.'
I am ashamed to say, I honestly wasn't sure I would. I was so determined to have a girl that this curve ball totally stopped me in my tracks. The whole future I had planned disappeared, as I lay there, catheter in and suppositories planted. I had to grieve the child I had wanted before I could celebrate the one I had had. I genuinely remember Husband looking at me all teary eyed and saying 'we have a son' and if I hadn't been so wired to machines, I would have thumped him. He let me believe we were having all things pink...
Now before the finger waggers start wagging - I'd like to say that my son is the love of my life. Easily the greatest joy and surprise I could ever have wished for. And, in subsequently having a daughter - who refuses to wear any freakin' tutus and loves cars - I can totally appreciate the joy in both sexes. Second time round - I came prepared - but would have been totally happy to have another boy - as Sproglet showed me just how amazing sons can be.
He used to wake at 9:30am when he was 18 months. In fact I used to complain when he woke at 8:30am. I would go back and slap myself if I could, I assure you. He is the easiest child in the world to mind - he is happy to play alone, or be a team member; he goes to bed and then sleep with ease; he has exemplary manners; he is ridiculously social and full to the brim with empathy for others. He gives the best hugs and is wildly affectionate. I won't lie - potty training was my Vietnam - but bar this - he has been the dreamiest kid to parent. When Sproglette was born we dusted the 'toddler taming' book off the shelf and set to studying it like we had an A level the next day. She who must be obeyed had arrived. Sproglet acquiesces. We try not to.
So Esther - fear not. Yes, your life may soon involve trucks and Ben 10 and football and a lot of volume control - it will also be full of spontaneous hugs and simplicity - as boys are one thought - one action. They are hungry - they eat. They are tired - they sleep. Not all the over thinking, deeply calculating, endless procrastination of girls. Let's face it, you married one boy* - another is a doddle. Oh and for all those who abused your searing honesty?
Load of old cock...
*(I say this not just of your critic Husband, but of all men....)
2 comments:
No wagging fingers from me! I am a total women's woman and about as feminine as you can get (Although I will be the first person getting dead rats or birds out the house & mowing the lawn!)
Adore fashion and studied dance well into my twenties - so having a girl just seemed like something that was inevitable - I mean how could it not?
Well, it just wasn't to be. I now have two boys which, like you, I love the pants off. But I do yearn for a girl and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I'm 38 now and whilst I obviously could try for another baby (my husband doesn't) - I'm just not sure I want to go through that all again- particularly as the chances are it will be boy number 3.
I think there's a certain grief a "boy" mother has to go through in accepting that those dreams are not going to happen and it's difficult to package them up and send them to the clouds. It's sounds rather melodramatic but it's true and that doesn't mean I love my boys any less.
Love the way you write btw Cx
But Esther Walker already *has* a daughter. It's not that she yearned to have a daughter or had a big daughter-shaped gap in her life; she just didn't want a boy.
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