Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have four adult daughters. Three are married. I will offer two comments to previous posters based on our experience.

1. It’s true that teen girls and sometimes adult daughters sometimes clash with their mothers in a way that boys don’t. We did with a couple of ours. But it’s typically temporary so long as the mother is a reasonably decent parent. A girl grows up and realizes that at times she was a PITA and that her mother did her best.

2. We see way, way more of our daughters and our grandchildren than their husbands’ families do. The husbands all get along with their families just fine but adult men just don’t make the same effort to see their families that women do.

As I grew up and became a mom I realized how self centered and absorbed my mom was. We rarely talk as I don’t meet her needs.

My mom has a weird enmeshed relationship with my brother even though he has not been very successful in school or life as me. I am estranged from my mom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of you people talking down boys or girls with stereotypical negative traits need to spend some time on a Special Needs parents forum to gain some perspective and count your blessings over your neurotypical kids, sheesh.

Please do not tell people to count their blessings that their child is not like mine, whether because that’s because your child is a girl or because they are neurotypical. My kids are also blessings, and are not props to make you feel better about your life.

Am the one with the original comment. And I have a kid with SN. What I meant is that when I see all this complaining over gender, it seems so shallow and frivolous given all my child and our family deal with in setting my child up for life. And same with all the SN families I know.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boys more likely to violent, commit crimes, end up in prison, be autistic or ADHD, lower executive function than girls, and more severe mental illnesses.

People can only afford one kid. 9 out of 10 moms would prefer it to be a girl. Moms of boys have little time for female-focused activities and self care. Moms of girls do all those things with their daughters. It’s a totally different child raising experience.

True. Everyone needs to watch “Adolescence” on Netflix. It’s truly eye opening about what boys have turned into in 2026. Glad we don’t have one!

Where are the posters crying about negative stereotypes now. And who is we?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boys more likely to violent, commit crimes, end up in prison, be autistic or ADHD, lower executive function than girls, and more severe mental illnesses.

People can only afford one kid. 9 out of 10 moms would prefer it to be a girl. Moms of boys have little time for female-focused activities and self care. Moms of girls do all those things with their daughters. It’s a totally different child raising experience.

Plus boys can become rapists.

After women raised them? They didn't just become that way.

Anonymous wrote:All of you people talking down boys or girls with stereotypical negative traits need to spend some time on a Special Needs parents forum to gain some perspective and count your blessings over your neurotypical kids, sheesh.

Please do not tell people to count their blessings that their child is not like mine, whether because that’s because your child is a girl or because they are neurotypical. My kids are also blessings, and are not props to make you feel better about your life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have four adult daughters. Three are married. I will offer two comments to previous posters based on our experience.

1. It’s true that teen girls and sometimes adult daughters sometimes clash with their mothers in a way that boys don’t. We did with a couple of ours. But it’s typically temporary so long as the mother is a reasonably decent parent. A girl grows up and realizes that at times she was a PITA and that her mother did her best.

2. We see way, way more of our daughters and our grandchildren than their husbands’ families do. The husbands all get along with their families just fine but adult men just don’t make the same effort to see their families that women do.

It’s because when women give birth they tend to cling to their mothers for advice not their mother in laws. I feel bad for boy moms. They won’t spend nearly as much time with their grandkids as girl moms

I had zero interest in advice from either my mom (who was not a particularly nurturing mother when I was young and also is incapable of giving advice without being condescending and rude) or my MIL when I had a baby. I mostly looked to friends, books, or paid resources. I learned more about parenting from childcare workers than from my parents or ILs for sure.

My MIL sees our kids more than my parents do, because we live closer. We live closer because my MIL lives within 2 hours of a major metropolitan area with an actual airport, and my parents decided to move to the middle of nowhere and it takes two days of travel including an expensive flight and hours of driving to visit them. Also neither my parents nor my MIL is willing to travel to us more than once every 3-4 years.

People who think your relationship with your adult kids will be dictated by their gender are overlooking the myriad of ways that you can influence that relationship with your own actions. You're the parent. Create a healthy relationship with all your kids, and figure out how to retain some closeness as your kids transition to adulthood (well before they've met a spouse or have kids -- most people have years to figure out how to relate to adult kids before a spouse enters the picture). If you want to see your adult kids and grandkids, arrange your life to prioritize them. If you instead prioritize your lifelong dream of living on the shore of a remote mountain lake, congrats on fulfilling that dream but don't be surprised when it means your grandkids barely know who you are because visiting you is a massive burden that requires a minimum of a week off school and work and thousands of dollars.

When I think about this and then hear people saying "oh if you have boys, you'll never see your grandkids," I roll my eyes all the way back in my head. Not if you actually put some effort in. Stop expecting everyone else to arrange your entire life for you and do the work.

Anonymous wrote:Boys more likely to violent, commit crimes, end up in prison, be autistic or ADHD, lower executive function than girls, and more severe mental illnesses.

People can only afford one kid. 9 out of 10 moms would prefer it to be a girl. Moms of boys have little time for female-focused activities and self care. Moms of girls do all those things with their daughters. It’s a totally different child raising experience.

True. Everyone needs to watch “Adolescence” on Netflix. It’s truly eye opening about what boys have turned into in 2026. Glad we don’t have one!

All of you people talking down boys or girls with stereotypical negative traits need to spend some time on a Special Needs parents forum to gain some perspective and count your blessings over your neurotypical kids, sheesh.

So silly it’s not like most people get to choose. I love my girls but would have loved sons every bit as much.

Anonymous wrote:Boys inevitabl grow up to be addicted to violent video games, and then they turn into incels, after joining the manosphere on social.

Girls cant be part of the manosphere by definition.

This is not true of my sons. One is in medical school and the other son is a research scientist.
Girls can be catty and mean.

I was leaning towards girl - for reasons I wasn't really sure of - maybe because I thought I didn't know what to do with a boy (and the diaper changing thing)?

I think it was in part because I grew up partly in a culture that preferred boys and the boys/men in my nuclear family are breathtakingly selfish. I didn't have close examples of how to raise a boy who wasn't like that.

I did have a girl, but my closest long term mom friends have boys - and I see their parents raising them to be considerate humans in a way that wasn't done in my house. So I'm guessing I would have figured it out.

And I've been consciously making sure I'm not raising my daughter to be a people pleaser like I was (or a selfish jerk!).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Watch the Netflix series “ Adolescence.”

It exposes what boys are really like today, and also why no one wants to have one.

The best description of Adolescence I read is that it's wishful porn, tapping into an irrational and unrealistic fear in left wing progressives when in real life the threat to women comes from quite different places.

Yeah, ok MAGA.

Anonymous wrote:https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/416809/sexism-girl-preference-sex-ratios-discrimination-ivf

Interesting piece. Have seen this pop up now and then.

Speaking to younger families/couples anecdotally I find this to be true also.

Thoughts?

Not clicking on the link, but isn't this about older moms who waited too long to have kids naturally and are using fertility treatments?

If you are an older first time mom who is going to be in your mid to late 60s with a teenager, and are conceiving in a way that the lab can pick the baby's gender, it makes sense that more of the moms will pick a daughter to increase the possibility that her only offspring will be more likely to take care of her in her old age. The older moms also likely perceive little girls as being less physically taxing for an older mom than little boys, making a duaghter more desirable than a son.

Anonymous wrote:I wanted girls. Hubby wanted boys

Opposite for us. I come from an all girl family and thought a boy would be a unique experience and more of a challenge since I felt like I "got" girls. None of us were catty ot bad teens and we love our moms but felt like I knew the playbook and wanted different. DH grew up in a more mixed large family and generally thought boys were little shits and is less impressed by men as a whole. We had one of each (twins) and it has worked out well.

Girls are harder to parent as teens. Mouthy, bratty, bad attitude. Boys get quieter and less rambunctious in teenage years but they eat so much