Girl babies, boy babies, gender expectations

Posted by Marcy Darnovsky August 25, 2008
Biopolitical Times
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Sex selection has become a frequent topic in parenting publications. The latest treatment is in Babble, the hip online magazine "for a new generation of parents" that debuted in December 2006. In "Pick a Sex, Any Sex," Jeanne Sager reports on parents who have, and parents who would never consider it.

Sager also cites the qualms of a California psychotherapist and author, Tina Tessina, who says, "there are a lot of issues parents ignore when they tie expectations to a child's sex."

"I can understand, if parents already have a child of one gender, why they might want a child of the other gender," Tessina said. "However, gender does not determine personality or parent-child connection. So, parents who put a great deal of store in expectations about gender may turn out to be disappointed…

"It really depends on the emotional maturity of the parent, but this kind of trying to control the baby's gender - rather than just being glad it's a healthy baby - indicates some lack of emotional maturity anyway."

Babble's home page features a poll on sex selection. In answer to the question, "Would you go to extremes to pick your baby's sex?" - admittedly not a neutral way of eliciting opinion - only six percent selected the answer "You bet."

Previously on Biopolitical Times: