When someone tells you he or she is going to be a parent, generally the first thing you say is “Congratulations!” Not so very long ago, the next thing you’d say would be “Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?” In recent years, we’ve begun to ask “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?” Not so very long from now, we may be asking “What did you choose, a boy or a girl?”
If you’ve got $15,000 to $20,000 and are willing to undergo In Vitro Fertilization, the gender of your future children may no longer be a crapshoot.
Always one for progress, this is one of the few times I am struck by the need to question whether this new advancement in our technology is something that we, as a society, ought to be embracing.
Where there is a medical need for gender selection, my qualms are few. But, when the motivation behind gender selection is a parent who says “I’ve always wanted a girl” or “My life won’t be complete until I’ve had a son,” I begin to worry.
Remember the good old days when most soon-to-be parents disclaimed a gender preference and told you that all they wanted was a healthy baby?
When parents say that they have a preference, I can’t help but wonder why. What is it that they feel makes one gender more desirable than another? What is it they feel they can do with one that they can’t do with the other?
There are those who prefer sons. Sometimes it’s out of a desire to see the family name perpetuated. Sometimes it’s a sports thing (“I want to play catch with my boy in the backyard”). Maybe it’s just a lingering remnant of the laws of primogeniture — they want someone to leave their worldly goods to.
Then there are those who want girls. I’ve heard a few people say that they want a girl so they’ll have someone to take care of them when they’re old. Others — usually women — want a girl so they can do the whole mother-of-the-bride thing someday.
I am puzzled by all of these people.
In today’s world, there is no law that says that you can’t play catch with your daughter. And, even if you can pick your child’s gender, there’s no guarantee that your child will ever marry, which counters the notion of perpetuating the name and the white-tulle wedding. And, if you want someone to take care of you when you’re in your golden years, it would seem far more sensible to take the money you’d spend to guarantee yourself a female child and pop it into a sound retirement fund.
Life as a child is difficult. So difficult, in fact, that we spend most of our adult lives trying to recover. How much more difficult will it be if we create a situation where science caters to parents who don’t want a child, but rather want a particular kind of child?