Carolyn Hax Says It Right

I've been reading Carolyn Hax's "Tell Me About It" column in The Washington Post since it began, over 10 years ago. The below Q&A were in today's column. Beautifully said. As I currently have two sons, I have to say that the expectaton of having two boys was FAR exceeded by the wonderful reality of watching them grow and getting to know them as people.

These are my children, and I love them for who they are. As I've always felt and believe to be true, dreams change. And usually, for the better.

Gender-town: Dear Carolyn, This sounds so stupid and sexist, but here goes: How do I become ok with the fact that I'm having another boy? I love my son. He is a wonderful and lovely 18-month-old. But I really cherish the close relationship I have with my mother, and now that I'm faced with the possibility of a life with only sons I feel I'll never have that kind of close adult connection with my own children. What's the saying, "A son is a son till he takes a wife, a daughter is a daughter all her life." I keep telling myself, "You give birth to a person, not a gender," but I'm not feeling it yet.



Carolyn Hax: It's not stupid to be sad when you have to resign yourself to not having something you value. You have a great thing with your mom, and saw yourself having that with a girl of your own. Totally normal, and for such positive reasons. It's something you can file with such resignations as, "I always thought I'd live by the ocean," or, "I always saw myself as a doctor." The way we envision ourselves has about a million ways of not happening.


That's the start of an approach to your disappointment: This was just one way your vision got derailed, and there could have been a million minus 1 others. If you had a daughter, there's no guarantee you'd be close, for, again, countless reasons. If you had a girl and just butted heads all the time, and your closeness never happened, that would be even more heartbreaking than this, wouldn't it?

Which leads us to ...: There's also nothing that says your disrupted vision is a bad thing. You know you're great with your mom, but you could have a different, just as great closeness to your sons. To bring back the examples I just used, maybe you don't live near the ocean because you found happiness in the mountains, and you're not a doctor because you got sidetracked when you would have been going to med school, and that side track took made you rich.


What you have here is an unexpected change of direction. You're not going to be "feeling it yet" until you get used to your new direction. Your little boy will have a lot to say about that. The chances are overwhelming that once you get to know him, you won't be able to imagine having wanted someone else.


What you can do now is open yourself to that idea. After you snuffle a bit about your non-girl, if that helps. It's an old story, though: You can't imagine it, until one day you do.


BTW, the saying is the one really sexist thing here. Bleagh.