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 My 20 month old son loves playing with his baby doll. Just so I'm clear, what hormones is he producing to make him enjoy feeding his baby? 

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I'm sympathetic to people who are a bit disappointed at first but get over it, I blame a pervasive culture that assigns static gender roles to infants more than I can blame the parents themselves. 

What I don't understand though is how people get so invested in imaging themselves with a particular sex baby. The sex (and later gender) of a baby is something parents have literally zero control over, and they go into parenthood knowing that. It's like fantasizing about what the weather will be like tomorrow (but with no knowledge about what the weather might actually be like) and then getting upset if it's something else. 

Thinking that you're going to get a particular gender just because you want it is as ridiculous to me as thinking God will keep you from getting pregnant even though you're having unprotected sex because you think he won't give you more children than you can handle. 

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I did not get pregnant easily so each time I was pregnant all I cared about was healthy, everything else was gravy.

I will admit my one major fear was that I would think my babies were ugly.  While I think most babies are adorable, I have seen some that were just...not.  When I was pregnant with my first, Phil Donahue did a show on women who thought their babies were ugly (and I agreed in most cases, tbh) and that just intensified by fears.

I didn't need to worry about it though because once I saw them, they were naturally perfect and adorable.  Whether other people thought so didn't bother me at all (though I don't remember anyone really saying anything along the lines of either of my kids being ugly).

I offered stereotypically boy or girl toys to both of them.  My daughter was more of a  girly girl and wasn't overly interested in "boy" type toys (trucks, cars, etc).  My son loved all toys and he was much more interested in clothes.  Even as a toddler he would choose clothes over a toy often times if given a choice.  

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We tried for five years and did five failed ivf:s before Miniway was born so all I wanted was a baby. Did I imagine a girl? Yes I did. I don't really know why since I'm not a very girly girl and truly believe in not gendering kids. I only have sisters, maybe that's why. And I think that there was a feeling I would have an easier time conecting with a child of my own gender.

From conception I was completly sure I was expecting a boy and I was right (we didn't check). Once he was born I was just so happy he was there and healthy I had no time to be disappointed he had a penis. I try to give Miniway all possibilities and he likes cars, trains, dogs, dolls, play food, his doctor bag, my little pony, puzzles and his little doll pram. He likes riding bikes, running, climbing, dancing and playing with balls. He also likes painting his nails and loves pink. He has a very girly dress with Hello Kitty that he begged me to buy and wears sometime. He likes keeping his hair long and is misstaken for a girl all the time. He is a lovely caring little boy that likes hugs. I hope he has the strength to stay himself once the peer pressure kicks in. 

Most importantly though, he loves books. And since the excuse to buy and read childrens books was like 50% of the reason I wanted a kid at all I feel like I have reached my parenting goals. :my_biggrin:

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On 10/11/2017 at 5:00 PM, Grimalkin said:

 I must admit. I’m deeply disappointed in my children, the one thing they have in common is being picky eaters and I’m really tired of the crap I get every night at the dinner table. They can’t even agree on where to order pizza.  I wish I could shape and mold them on n that capacity. 

I thought it was just my kids. We have three pizza places on rotation for this reason.

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One of mine fits with gender stereotypes well, one is the complete opposite and one is pretty average.  All of them have played with dolls and trucks.  So hormonal imbalances abound?

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I just kinda assumed my daughter would like baby dolls because my sister and I always loved them. I had a realistic newborn doll that was my pride and joy when I was little and when my daughter was about 5 I gave it to her. She had a real crib right next to her bed for my daycare baby to nap in. Well, I saw that she had shoved the doll under the crib. I asked her why and she said she didn't know where else to put it. I said, well, it's a baby...maybe INSIDE the crib? She gave me a startled look and said, "But then it will SEE me!" :pb_lol:

She's never been a fan of baby dolls at all (Barbies and stuff to an extent). She was always completely obsessed with animals. I don't think any kid has ever gotten half the use out of a Fisher-Price zoo as she did. I still have it because it has such sentimental value. Then, she was into really Matchbox cars for a while, but she didn't play with them like they were cars, she played with them like they were people, having them live in her dollhouse. Yes, they even drove the dollhouse people's car. She was a strange child (and aren't they all?).

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After reading more on that forum, I am convinced that it is more harmful than helpful. It a giant echo chamber. There is no one offering real help. How is that a good thing? These people need professional help.

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13 hours ago, Terrie said:

Sorry, but just because your son wasn't interested in a doll doesn't make that true. Biology and socialization are way more complex than that.

That is exactly what I said. 

You wanna take 2 kids, one with a pussy and the other with cock and balls and raise them as gender neutral, fine. My kids who don’t play with a baby doll, whatever.  I am not looking for a fight. I am sure that biologically male children love their baby dolls.  I offered my experience as a mother to 3 bio and 2 stepsons.  

In my case, only, the narrative fit the sex. 

@samurai_sarah I am deeply offended that you brought the label of “freak” and racism into this conversation. 

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On 11/8/2017 at 7:39 PM, Milly-Molly-Mandy said:

I don’t know why your snarking on this. Gender disappointment is real. I have 2 good friends who have 3 boys and have suffered from this. 

I don’t know why you think Free Jinger is the appropriate place to post this. 

It's normal to feel some disappointment if you had your heart set on a boy or girl, but when you sink into deep depression so much that you can't love your baby and have to abort to feel okay shows that that love is conditional.  That's problematic.

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Hey,

 

I posted on this forum about a year ago, which was very controversial, and many have expressed their disagreement. I had explain that I had a girl and boy and was pregnant with another girl, and how I preferred my boy way more than my girl. My last born is now 7months, and I still struggle very much with GD, so much that I wanted to put her for adoption. My husband was shocked I could even think about it, and was really upset. He told me that he was up to try again to get another son. I can't stand my baby, I hate taking care of her, if she cries I feel like she is doing it on purpose to annoy me. I am so depressed, all I want is to take my son and leave the two girls with my husband. I have no love at all for my eldest, and she is nearly 4. I want to run away !!!!

Do your friends hate their children like Claudine83?  This is not normal or mentally healthy.

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Thanks everyone for your words and advices. I have seen a 3 different therapists, with and without my husband. They have expressed that I don't need to go on medication, and set up a plan for me. But it is not helping, I feel like I am faking it. I don't think about hurting my daughters, I care about their wellbeing, but I admit that if tomorrow my husband agreed to put them both for adoptions, I would be relieved. It is hard to write that, and I have nobody to tell the truth too. My eldest daughter is a fantastic child, but I don't love her. My mum took her for 2 weeks, and I did not miss her at all. I used to treat her very poorly ( Not physical violence , but shouting at her and getting easily annoyed even when she did not do anything, or playing with my son while leaving her with a relative) but now I had changed a lot, and try to treat her the same. My husband feels the difference and is happier. My youngest on the other hand is the issue, I wish O had never got pregnant, I am stuck with her all day, she cries non stop, I sometimes dress her in blue and call her the baby name I chose for a son. My husband is a great father, and does not understand how I feel. I don't want to leave him, I love him too much, the best option would be getting rid of the 2 girls and leaving the perfect life my husband, my son and I. But he told me that if he ever had to choose between me and the kids, it will be the kids. Is there anyway to give you kids for adoption without the consent of the father ?

More from Claudine.  God.  Damn.  She hates her daughters so much for their vaginas that she wants to get rid of them.  Her oldest is 4.  This isn't PPD.  I think she's mentally ill and needs a psychiatrist instead of a therapist.

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That last sentence is alarming. I would be worried about leaving her alone with these girls.

4 hours ago, Jug Band Baby said:

Is there anyway to give you kids for adoption without the consent of the father ?

I understand being briefly disappointed or needing a few days to adjust.

Children are not always what we expect them to be. People frequently make comments where they assume my daughter is calm and quiet. She's not! I have also got comments about how I now have more mess now that I have a son. One of my daughter's talents is making messes and my son is much less messy in how he plays.

It makes me sad that these moms can't find it in themselves to love their children because they are their children.

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I hope that woman's therapist(s) and husband are aware of the fact that she is willing to put those kids up for adoption behind her hubsand's back.  I'm relatively certain there is no way you can fake something like termination of parental rights because you'd need a notary and that has to be done in person, but I would not be surprised if those kids just "disappeared" from a park or mall one day :(

When I was about 5-6 months pregnant with my first, my (now ex)husband informed me that he didn't want to be a dad (that would have been nice to know before the fertility drugs, tests, and the pregnancy), would NOT be going into labor room or delivery room with me, etc.  He never went to a single one of my dr. appts or ultrasounds, etc.  One of my friends had been through L&D with another friend as she was a single mom, so he said he would go in with me so I wouldn't be alone. 

I turned out having to have a c-section and he still refused to go in with me, but fortunately, I knew most of the staff that was in the room with me (living in a small town has some perks) so I didn't particularly feel alone.

When the nurse went out to hand my husband the baby I figured it wouldn't go well, but my parents were also there so I figured they could handle any issues that came up.  The second they put that baby in his arms he fell immediately in love.  My dad had to stop him from walking off with her and force him to give her back to the nurse when it was time.   My dad was pretty sure he would have just walked out with her and taken her home had not been stopped.

I kind of thought that was how things normally went.  You are a pack of nerves during the pregnancy and once the baby is here you love it just because.  I really hope this woman gets some better help before those kids are much older.  There is no way she's not treating the son differently, even if the daughter(s) may not notice it at this point.  That is incredibly sad when there are so many people that would love to have a baby and can't :(

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I think that forum is very scary. I do not think what they have/say is actually "gender disappointment", it really seems like something else. I hope they all get some help for children's sake.

I also wanted to add my two cents as a "normal" person in. I had my first child very young (a teenager). I knew I wanted to keep it, but I was also well aware that at any moment I may become a single a parent. I was very invested in having a girl. I begged all my friends to wear pink to school the day of the ultrasound for good vibe and I swear they all forgot and wore blue, independent of each other. I was crushed and cried that night when i found out I was having a boy. All I really knew about boy was from my little brothers and they were monsters. I didn't want that nor did I think I could handle it. I continued on, poor kid was almost born without a name because I found it so difficult to find a boy's name. Years later now I wish I would have put more thought into it, Iove his first name, but it is very childish and the rest, well sperm donor got say and I regret that. He was born and while I loved him, I was still scared and didn't feel like I bonded with him. I took care of him and grew to like him, but I still wondered if I would like him better if were a girl. Not long after my 18th birthday we moved away and were on our own just the two of us in a totally different place (culturally) than I grew up. He was all I had and that was a real turning point for me. I realized that he lived to snuggle and play play town and have stories read and watch disney movies. All things I would have done with a daughter. He is now 13 and I cannot imagine him being a girl. He is still affectionate and even cuddles me still. He sometime a big baby. We have long conversations and are as close as can be.  I tell him often that I am so thankful he came out a boy, because don't think I could have handled a girl. I honestly believe we have such a great relationship because he is a boy.

I realized the last couple of years in hindsight, that I was simply afraid of the unknown, which I think drives a lot the real gender disappointment in women. More often than not we are the primary caretakers and that fear of not being able to relate to or understand your child is very real. I know that can be said of lot of other issues kids might have (cognitive disorders, physical abnormalities, and so on), but some how a fear of those things is accepted in our society. Not to get off track. I have just done a lot of thinking about this lately because I am expecting again and I realized while I am just dying to find out the sex of the baby, I don't really care now which it is. I am terrified to raise a girl, but I will happy either way.  Also I just asked my son if he has a preference for a brother or sister and he said no, I prodded him and he stood fast, he is just happy to be getting a sibling of his own finally. I would say both of us learned a valuable lesson out my gender disappointment.
 

Sorry for the long post. This topic is just near and dear to my heart. Not only for having had those feelings myself as stated above, but also being on the other end. My father had no interest in having a daughter to point he accused my mother of cheating, saying there was no way he could make a girl. He refused to sign my birth certificate until after I had two younger brothers. He also has another daughter who is older than me and who he also hates. I don't talk to him anymore, but it does hurt. I feel sorry for the children whose mothers are posting in this forum. As I said before, I don't think this is gender disappointment. It is some horrible form of sexism.  I really can't fathom what would help these people, but in my case, it would have helped to have been put up for adoption (which threatened to do in front of me. I think was about 6 or 7 at the time). I love my mom, but the 10 years she stayed with him and the being forced to continue to see him until I was 18 were torture and I have feeling those kids will be going through the same.

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On November 9, 2017 at 6:36 PM, anjulibai said:

I had gender disappointment with both of my children, both boys. I could go into all the reasons why, but frankly most of these responses just show a massive amount of judgment, so fuck that. I'm not going to try to explain it to people that act like I'm a horrible person for having these feelings. 

I will say, though, that having a forum like this one would have helped me a great deal when I was going through this, especially with my first boy. It would have helped me feel less alone. As it was, just knowing that there were other people (both women and men) that experienced this helped me feel better. Because a great deal of the issues around gender disappointment was feeling that you can't express it to anyone because they are going to judge you.

Which this thread shows is true. So glad I only talked about this to my husband and a therapist. 

For the record, I adore my boys and wouldn't change them for anything. 

The major difference here is that you adore your boys and wouldn't change them. I think what most of us are judging or even trying to understand are the instances where some mothers state that they hate their children and want to give them up. There is a huge difference in being disappointed with your child's gender but able to move on and love them, versus hating them and not wanting them.

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On 11/9/2017 at 8:26 AM, Terrie said:

Being bummed the outcome wasn't quite what you hoped for is one thing. Complaining that they'll never have their dress-up doll daughter (yeah, good luck with that. I refused to wear dresses even as a toddler) or their "rough and tumble" boy to carry on the family name is nothing but sexism and stereotypes and well within the normal snark of FJ.

Yeah there were a few posters on in gender who got the preferred gender of child but then their child didn't confirm to the gender expectations of their parents. (I remember one one who was mad her daughter liked to play sports)

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On 11/11/2017 at 8:50 PM, StepMonsterInLA said:

You wanna take 2 kids, one with a pussy and the other with cock and balls and raise them as gender neutral, fine.

But just...why would you use those terms in regard to children? That sounds really gross and inappropriate to me. I'm not trying to handslap, I just really am taken aback to see that language being used to describe kids.

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On 11/11/2017 at 9:35 PM, Coy Koi said:

Well, I saw that she had shoved the doll under the crib. I asked her why and she said she didn't know where else to put it. I said, well, it's a baby...maybe INSIDE the crib? She gave me a startled look and said, "But then it will SEE me!" :pb_lol:

Little kid logic is one of my favorite things in the world.

I want to thank the FJers who shared their experience with gender disappointment. It was brave, and acknowledging where such feelings come from and taking steps to move past them in order to find happiness and bond with the child is wonderful. It seems many parents on the forum OP linked to are unable to do this, and instead of examining their own feelings and expectations and loving the child they refuse to love the child. It's  world of difference.

On 11/11/2017 at 10:15 PM, RosyDaisy said:

After reading more on that forum, I am convinced that it is more harmful than helpful. It a giant echo chamber. There is no one offering real help. How is that a good thing? These people need professional help.

This is how my therapist feels about many support groups. While it's wonderful to find someone experiencing the same issues so you don't feel alone and feel validated, when people reinforce negative thought patterns or behaviors it's no longer helpful. That's why she wants people in therapy groups she runs to not only support and validate one another, but also become comfortable enough to call each other out on their shit.

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25 minutes ago, HarryPotterFan said:

Little kid logic is one of my favorite things in the world.

You suckers can let creepy dolls watch you sleep all you want, but the smarter of us, meaning 5-year-olds, will decline.

I don't know if that intelligence and wisdom carries over, though. Now she usually lets the cat sleep with her, and I'm pretty sure that the cat just stares at us ominously as we sleep.

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8 minutes ago, Coy Koi said:

You suckers can let creepy dolls watch you sleep all you want, but the smarter of us, meaning 5-year-olds, will decline.

I don't know if that intelligence and wisdom carries over, though. Now she usually lets the cat sleep with her, and I'm pretty sure that the cat just stares at us ominously as we sleep.

Well yeah, dolls are creepy and come alive when you aren't around and cats are fluffy and cuddly and make it clear it's an honor to love them.

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1 minute ago, HarryPotterFan said:

Well yeah, dolls are creepy and come alive when you aren't around and cats are fluffy and cuddly and it clear it's an honor to love them.

Blink twice if your cat is looking over your shoulder....

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Kids are going to disappoint you. You have to love the children you have, not the children you created in a fantasy.  That group doesn't sound healthy at all. Disappointment that you get over once you meet your fabulous baby is one thing, wanting to give away your child is another. 

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On 11/9/2017 at 9:10 AM, of_the_lioness said:

I was sad when I found out (at an ultrasound appointment) that baby #1 was a boy. When he was born he was the best thing that happened to me, of course. When we found out baby #2 was a girl, I was over the moon - one of each! And then a few weeks later, just before the point of viability...she died in utero. After that, I just wanted LIVING babies. Anyone who hates or wants to give up their child because of its sex or gender shouldn’t be a parent. 

Our 7.5 month old son died due to a congenital heart defect.  When I got pregnant again a few years later, a healthy baby was all that we were wishing for.  I agree with your post 100%, and I'm so sorry for your loss. 

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