Bringing on the boys

By Courtnet Edelhart
Indianapolis Star

Girls may be sugar and spice and everything nice, but boys are more coveted in family planning, according to a new survey.

Jon Orque • The Honolulu Advertiser

The most recent findings were based on telephone interviews with more than 1,000 Americans. The survey found 38 percent wanted a boy, 28 percent wanted a girl, and 27 percent had no preference. Five percent said they weren't sure.

Most men hoped for sons (45 percent vs. 19 percent for daughters). Women were split almost evenly in the desire for girls or boys.

That preference hasn't changed much since Gallup first posed the question in 1941, says Frank Newport, editor of the Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing.

Newport doesn't speculate on reasons for the findings from the July survey, saying the data didn't allow him to reach definitive conclusions. But he does venture a guess that respondents weren't too committed to their stated preference.

"I don't believe these are passionately hard-felt attitudes," Newport said. "Usually, once the child gets here, the parents are happy either way. The United States isn't like some countries where girls are murdered or abandoned and that sort of thing."

America is, nevertheless, a male-dominated culture, and that is likely a factor in the poll's results, said Joan Aldous, a sociologist at the University of Notre Dame.

"The women's movement brought some gains, but men still have more earning power than women," she says. "Men make $1 for every 78 cents made by women, so men are still seen as the major breadwinners, whereas women are traditionally the caretakers in the family."

Honolulu counselor Bobbie Sandoz said she isn't surprised by the findings.

"It reflects power and value," said the local relationship and parenting consultant and author of "Parachutes for Parents." "The good news is that women are beginning to see the value of women."

She added that women should "claim the value of our daughters, but not make them more than men," since polarization is why more women don't join the feminist movement.

"It's not against men, it's honoring our own value," she said, "which would be reflected in the desire for a daughter, or to welcome each, in balance."

Changing the odds

In traditional conception, the odds of giving birth to a boy vs. a girl are about 50-50.

Certain fertility treatments can alter that balance. Sperm selection, for instance, can change the odds to about 70-30.

Bioethicists are uncomfortable with treatments motivated purely by social concerns, but there are many inherited medical conditions that make one gender more desirable than another.

Hemophilia is more common in males, for instance. So are color blindness and muscular dystrophy.

Most couples who try to tip the scale toward a boy or girl do so for medical reasons, says Dr. Marc Kappelman, an Indianapolis obstetrician/gynecologist. But he does remember a few who simply had their hearts set on a boy.

"It's amazing what people will do nowadays to get what they want," Kappelman says, noting that healthy couples occasionally have undergone fertility treatments in an attempt to influence the sex of their infant.

Lucky seven

Kate Wester, a University of Hawai'i employee, just found out she has a son on the way, due March 29. She says she really had no preference for the sex of her baby — and she was surprised to learn it's more common to have a preference.

"I will tell you, I really thought it was a girl," she said. "I'd had dreams about having a girl. When I found out it was a boy, I was really surprised."

When people ask what she "wants," a boy or girl, she told them she wanted a healthy baby with a good personality "who enjoys the bouncy seat enough to let me take a shower," she said. Although she did find out this weekend at the outlet mall that girls definitely have a bigger selection of baby clothes.

Willie Bell Hayes, 78, left the matter to fate. The Indianapolis, Ind. homemaker hoped for at least one boy, but gave birth to seven daughters, now all grown.

Hayes recalls that as she was in labor with No. 7, she asked the girls if they wanted a brother or sister, and they wanted another sister. She consoled herself with that when another girl arrived.

"I said, 'Well, everybody got what they wanted,' " she says, chuckling.

One of Hayes' daughters, 39-year-old hair stylist Marel "Tish" Norris, doesn't believe the family missed out on much with so many girls in the house.

Her father taught them all how to play sports, fix cars, anything he would have taught a son. "I think it made us all a lot more independent," Norris says.

Norris, now the mother of one son and one daughter, doesn't remember much squabbling growing up. "My mother didn't allow it," she says.

These days, Norris isn't wanting for brothers. Her husband, Louis Norris, has six brothers and no sisters. Ironically, her mother-in-law always wanted a girl.

One thing most Americans agree on is that children of either gender are desirable. Among Gallup respondents in child-rearing years who were not yet parents, 86 percent said they hoped to have children some day.

Advertiser staff writer Mary Kaye Ritz contributed the Hawai'i information to this report.