Confession To My Daughter: I Had Wanted A Son

Sometimes my blog feels like a confession box to me. I enter it with a heavy heart, wanting to lighten the burden of guilt by confessing to you, the reader. This confession, that I wanted a son, is meant for my daughter too to read when she is grown up enough. I hope she will forgive me.

It is common knowledge that sex determination of the foetus is banned in India. The grim reason being high female foeticide rates in the country. The reason for the foeticide is a discourse in itself, which I will not enter here. But it again is known that Indians generally celebrate sons more than daughters. In my in-laws’ community, it is still a custom to celebrate the first Lohri of a male child with much fervour. Not so for a girl child. A similar custom exists in my community. I know of another community where a ceremony is held during pregnancy to pray for the birth of a male child.

Many families these days though are doing away with the discrimination in their homes. They rejoice over a daughter’s birth as much. But they still seem to be the exceptions to the rule.

How I Came To Want A Son

This goes back to the time when I was expecting. People I met during my pregnancy would look at me and try and assess whether it was going to be a ‘he’ or ‘she’. Their predictions would be based on the pregnancy glow (or the lack of it, to be precise), the acne, or the bulge of my belly. Some would decide on the basis of my food cravings. Others would say that they just ‘knew’. In most cases though, the forecast was a boy. Of course, I knew it was all unscientific, and of course, I laughed it all off as people trying to make conversation. But it is only later that I realized that they were also trying to make me feel ‘good’. And that it did.

I guess, some subconscious need for approval had made me believe all this foretelling. And it had made me look forward to the special treatment I was going to receive as the mother of a son. This I realized once I had time to reflect back on two incidents that occurred in the labour room.

When I Realized That I Had Wanted A Son

The first incident that made me realize that I had wanted a son, happened the moment after the birth of my daughter. When the doctor told me that I had got for myself a ‘mini-Neha’, I was surprised. I must have even looked surprised. Because the doctor looked at my expression and asked what my expectation had been. To this day, the surprise and the question make me feel guilty.

In my consciousness, I had never looked forward to a son or wanted a son over a daughter. In my consciousness, I always thought of myself as a feminist. And believed in no gender stereotypes. But at that moment, my conscious and subconscious selves were face-to-face. My surprise itself had surprised me.

Anyway, the next moment, the doctor put my daughter in my arms and all was well in the world. But some of the feelings must have still remained unresolved in my subconscious. I say this because later when my mom-in-law entered the room to meet us, I saw her and started to cry. And these were tears of guilt, not happiness, mind you. I was crying at having failed her.

Truth be told, I don’t remember my mom-in-law ever speaking a word about the sex of my unborn child. Nor do I recount her having spoken about it after her birth. Yet, the same old need for approval in my subconscious had connected itself to my mother-in-law. I was hoping to get some validation from her once I became the mother of a son, like her.

The Fulfilment Of My Expectation

Every time I have relived these two incidents, I have apologized to my daughter in my head. This time, I wanted to put it down in writing. Whatever my subconscious may have expected at the time, I have had no regret since she was born. I love her.

Not that I am an exception as a loving mother of a girl child. I know many, many friends and family members who love their girls to pieces. I know that my parents too were content with having only me and my sister. But I know that I am also not alone in feeling the guilt of that build-up before the daughter was born. I can bet my mother has felt it too. Though she too did not ever voice this hope, I believe that during my pregnancy, she too would have been hoping for a grandson as she would not have wanted me to go through what she had, as a mother of ‘no son’. I write this post for her too. I write it also because I want the next mom in the confession box to know that she is not the only one.

And that we are not totally responsible either. Had I wanted a son for reasons other than more felicitation, I would have had one after my daughter. I any way get regular advice to do that from some.

But now I know better. I do not want another child as of now. And I don’t also find anything wrong with my husband’s desire for a boy to be added to the mix. I am only waiting to find the right reasons for myself this time.

So Who Is Guilty For The Guilt?

It is the society that is guilty of muddling the waters of parenthood with gender bias. It is guilty of still celebrating a woman who gives birth to a son, more than the mother of a daughter. It is guilty of still not internalizing scientific facts. Facts like the father being biologically responsible for the sex of his child. So if at all the sex of the child has to be a pressure point or a reason for celebration, it should be so for the father.

As it is, the fathers of today are no strangers to role-reversals. That day in the labour room, it was the father of my child who cried the tears of happiness. How I would have liked to keep those tears for myself, though!