Blue Or Pink, Does It Matter? Should It?

It is difficult gossiping with your spouse when you are both busy with work and have two demanding daughters at home. So my wife and I find getting stuck in the evening traffic as the best time for spouse gossip. So here we were stuck in traffic the other day when my wife starts telling me of some of her friends’ desires for kids. Apparently one of her friends was looking for someone to advice her how she can conceive a baby girl. So far she has four boys but she is desperate for a girl. Short of knowing the sex of the child at conception and deciding to abort if it is not the favorable gender, I really have no answer for this. A while back she told me about another friend who upon noticing that my wife had a “cute girl”, was now also looking for a girl. I think when some women see kids happily playing around they start to suddenly crave for a kid like one would crave for a chocolate or something like that. Then there is also a fellow we both know who has 4 girls with his wife. He also has ‘a few’ other girls with several mistresses, girls he has apparently sired as he desperately looks for a boy child. He is a good businessman and I think he might be looking for a son who will one day inherit his wealth.

My wife herself has on several occasions talked about her desire to have one last kid, a boy, despite my insisting that the two girls we have should be enough. The times are becoming difficult on the economic front and I am also not getting any younger so when this comes up I usually remember to make an urgent call and conveniently extract myself from that conversation.

Anyway, for me the question is whether it really should matter whether you have a son or girl. I know that this is a big issue in some cultures, like in India where cases of girl infanticide are high. Sons are there to keep the family name and line, to inherit the family business. In India they also bring some wealth into the family when they marry as it is the girl’s family that pays the dowry. In my Luo community, it is your sons who inherit the land. But today I see young men who refuse to get into the family business. Others make their money and buy land in Kitengela, opting to make their homes in other places far from their ancestral land. So in this age and time does it really matter that you have girls only? For me it does not. When my wife was pregnant we even declined to know the sex of the kids in advance. I like that moment when the doctor tells you it is a baby girl. Was I disappointed when the doctor told me the second kid was a baby girl? Well, because I was in the delivery room and saw my wife’s delivery run into complications, I was more worried about her health and recovery…and then about the huge hospital bill that we accumulated  Took me days to notice that we now had two girls, and I am happy with them!