One of the first things people ask when they discover you’re having a second boy is: “so will you be trying for a girl?” And if they’re not asking questions, and instead merely offering advice, you’ll usually hear: “well, maybe the third will be a girl!”
Insert eyeroll.
I don’t get offended because I know people mean well and that they assume the “ideal” family is one boy, one girl. Instead, I usually just laugh and ignore it because it’s really silly, to be perfectly honest.
No. We won’t be “trying for a girl.” We decided on two children for our family. We settled on that number years ago for a variety of reasons. A third child just isn’t in the plans for our family because of expenses, our sanity, room, and a myriad other reasons. The biggest reason of them all is the sanity aspect. Jerry and I are quiet people who enjoy a lot of downtime. Children… are not. Though we love ours dearly, the thought of any more than two simply overwhelms us. We’re content that Caleb and his brother will have each other, and we feel that’s enough. We feel that our family is complete. So no… no trying for a girl because that would mean a third child, and we settled on two. We didn’t care what the gender would be of the two children, we just wanted two total. I think that’s the biggest thing to remember when growing your family: decide on the number of children you want, not the gender of children you want.
Not only is the number of children we opted for preventing us from “trying for a girl,” it’s also the fact that we are content with our family the way it is. When we were trying to conceive our children, we were simply trying to conceive, not trying to conceive a particular gender or a specific person. We didn’t wish for children with certain hair, certain looks, or certain personality traits. We wished for the children that were meant to be ours. We TRIED for the children we were given; we didn’t TRY for a boy or a girl either time. That’s just silly.
Still, people assume we will keep on trucking and keep on making babies and it’s not going to happen. If the second had turned out to be a girl, then people probably would have said “well you must be done now since you have one of each!” They would have said we were crazy to have a third. But when you have two of the same? It’s an automatic assumption that you’ll have a third to keep on trying for that gender you didn’t have the first two times, as if it’s some kind of carnival game you keep on playing until you land on their idea of ideal. It’s not a game though. It’s our life.
The longer I’ve had to think about my second son, the happier and more content I feel. I know that this was the child who was meant for our family. I don’t want anyone or anything else. I feel strongly that I am meant to be a boy mom and I couldn’t be any more excited about my little family and my two sons. I truly question now how I could raise a girl. I am so easily overwhelmed and anxious, and I just don’t think my personality would mesh well with raising girls. Boys are difficult in their own ways, of course, but in general I think they’re a little more laid back and have an easier nature about them. That suits me just fine, and now I couldn’t imagine my family having shaken out to be ANY other way.
God knew just what he was doing when he gave us our boys.
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