Gender Disappointment (or Sex Disappointment, to be more accurate!) is one of the last true taboos of parenting. We talk to three women about their disappointment – and the shame they have felt.
TW: Eating disorders
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As the sonographer began thickly applying gel to Alex’s belly, she asked if the couple knew the sex of their baby – or if they wanted it to be kept a secret.
Alex told her they didn’t know yet, but would she mind writing it down on a piece of paper for them to look at later.
“Of course I can,’ she said. “Are you having a gender reveal party?”
Alex’s husband, Paul, explained that no, they weren’t quite sure if they wanted a surprise or not, so having it sealed up in an envelope would be handy if they decided they did want to know.
Alex smiled at the sonographer, but, inside, her stomach was churning, because that wasn’t quite the full story.
“I wanted to find out in my own home,” says Alex. “I didn’t want to be around anyone so I didn’t have to pretend in front of anyone.”
Because, in reality, Alex was desperate to know the sex of their unborn child.
“I think most people assume that women want to have a little girl,” she says. “But I was really hoping it wasn’t a girl.”
Alex’s reasoning is two-fold. She has a difficult relationship with her mother – the two of them haven’t spoken in seven years. And, she spent much of her teen years and early twenties battling an eating disorder – just like her own mother.
“I was really afraid of having a daughter,” says Alex. “It would be hard confronting a lot of those things again. I thought that a boy, would therefore be much easier and safer for me.”
So, when they got home that afternoon and opened the envelope to discover they were having a girl, Alex immediately burst into tears and was inconsolable for the rest of the afternoon.
It’s something she kept to herself and didn’t tell a soul about – except for her husband and her therapist who she went back to for the first time in more than 10 years.
She bit her tongue as she told friends and family who squealed with delight and bought her little pink cardigans, onesies and dolls.
“I kept most of the girly stuff in boxes in my wardrobe,” says Alex. “I bought so much gender neutral stuff – plus lots of Lego, trucks and dinosaurs.”
It’s now seven years since she welcomed her daughter – who now has a little brother – and while Alex still has some fears about what could happen during her daughter’s teenage years, she feels a world of difference to how she felt that day they opened the envelope.
“I was still freaked out after I gave birth,” she says. “And the hormones afterwards sent me on a real spin, but it became less of a big deal as time went on. With every month that went by, a saw more of her personality and it so different to mine or my mother’s. She is just like my husband. I never considered that. She likes girly things, but she’s also not like me at all.”
Alex says she’s continued to keep her feelings of disappointment to herself, because she still feels such intense feelings of guilt and shame.
In reality, more people – particularly women – experience gender disappointment than we might realise. (And please note, we know the correct term should be sex disappointment, but the term gender disappointment is the one that is used globally in experiencing disappointment at the sex of your child – we’ll be using gender and sex disappointment throughout this article).
Many psychologists say they often see patients who are experiencing it, while one study suggested that around 20% of new mothers go through gender disappointment.
Yet, it remains a very taboo subject. Those women – and men – experiencing it often keep their feelings to themselves to avoid being judged, something they’re likely to be doing to themselves pretty heavily anyway.
“People often feel a tremendous amount of guilt and shame around gender disappointment, particularly those who have previously dealt with loss, infertility, or trauma,” says Dr. Shara Brofman, PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist who specialises in reproductive and perinatal mental health.
“Parents know that the narrative is ‘you should be happy,’ ‘you should be grateful,’ so they often keep their disappointment to themselves,” she says.
“Whatever feelings you’re having is okay,” says Dr. Brofman. “Know that you don’t get to be in a relationship with anyone—including your baby—without some disappointment. It’s actually quite normal to have disappointment, and that might manifest in a variety of ways. It just so happens that gender disappointment is a particularly powerful one.”
Dr Chrissy Jayarajah, a consultant perinatal psychiatrist says that a preference for having a male child has been well documented in eastern cultures over the last few centuries, but ‘gender disappointment’ is something that is becoming more discussed – and is potentially more on the rise – in western cultures now. She wonders if this rise is due to the influence of social media.
“One possible explanation for gender disappointment in Western culture is that of the emerging trend for the idealisation of gender, particularly in the wake of social media,” she says. “We have seen the rise in popularity of ‘pregnancy announcements’ made on online platforms as well as ‘gender reveal’ parties, with their videos becoming viral. The societal shift may relate to the emergence of the idealisation of motherhood in a culture preoccupied with parenting perfectionism.”
Aucklander Tash says that – to some extent – she is inclined to agree.
“My first-born was a boy, and I wasn’t too worried what sex we had,” she says. “I knew we’d at least try to have two kids, so it didn’t matter who we had first. But when I was pregnant with my second, I was secretly hoping for a girl. I wanted one of each! And, I had three friends who were all pregnant at the same time. Two of them were having girls – the third was on her third child and was having a boy after having two girls already!”
Tash says those friends were nearing the end of the pregnancies and were having quite lavish baby showers.
“They had such cute parties, with all this girly, beautiful stuff,” she says. “One of them had a little ‘baby girl pamper party’ where she had a woman there doing little hand massages and mini facials.”
Tash says she’d also been to a couple of birthday parties for young girls and hoped she might get to throw a party like that one day.
“They were cute little fairy parties,” she says. “It’s not that I didn’t love doing digger and truck parties for my son, I just wanted to experience that too.”
So when she had a gender reveal party and cut into a blue cake she smiled and cheered and then later that afternoon had a shower and cried.
“It was so embarrassing,” she says. “I’m so lucky to have two babies. I just felt like I was missing out on something. Having two boys is so special though and they are best friends and I wouldn’t change anything about either of them! I felt that as soon as he was born. But, every now and then we’ll go to a little girl party, or I’ll see a mum and daughter together and feel a pang of something that I won’t ever get to experience that. I love my mum so much, I think I just wanted that relationship again in my life. I wanted to be the mother of the bride, or go ball dress shopping with my daughter. I know that’s awful and gender stereotyping, but for a while I did grieve not having this future I thought I would.”
Dr. Brofman says these feelings of grief are actually very common. Gender disappointment is a complicated, confusing thing, but the first step in working through your feelings to give yourself some grace.
Licensed psychologist Julia Garrett says her first recommendation for dealing with gender disappointment is to give yourself permission to feel.
“You can be endlessly grateful for your baby’s health and grieve the life you imagined,” she says. “All feelings are fair! Plus, when we tell ourselves we shouldn’t be feeling a certain way, it only makes us feel worse. Sadness with shame is an extra-tough combination.”
She recommends validating your feelings and giving yourself a reminder that of course, it makes sense to feel disappointed when you had expectations that didn’t meet your reality.
“Another strategy is to ‘peel back the onion’ a bit to see if you can make sense of why you’re feeling disappointed,” she says. “When we’re able to understand the underlying reason, we can often check in with our own thinking and beliefs to see if there’s a way to reframe things!
“For example, ‘I had pictured going on girls’ trips with my daughter and that will never happen,’ could shift to, ‘My feelings of disappointment are fair and valid, and I’m going to focus my efforts on how to connect with my baby no matter their gender.’ Sometimes this comes with challenging our own gender stereotypes and focusing on bonding methods regardless of whether you’re having a boy or girl.”
Hamilton mother, Kerri, says she remembers feeling some disappointment when her firstborn was held up to her in the delivery room and the midwife said, ‘say hello to your son!’
“It’s silly, but I immediately felt sad that I wouldn’t be going on mother daughter holidays like I did with my mum,” she says.
Now, her son is 24 and she has a daughter, aged 21.
“I’ve just got back from travelling to Egypt with my son,” she says. “We’ve gone on lots of trips and had lots of dinners out together. My daughter has never wanted to join us anywhere since she was 14! My advice to anyone who has gender disappointment is that often, gender actually has nothing to do with it. You can’t predict their personalities and in my experience, they’re often not tied to their gender. The sooner you let go of that, the sooner you can let your child be who they want to be and are meant to be.”
Melanie – a mother of two adult sons – agrees with Kerri wholeheartedly.
“I was always happy with having boys – I have three – but I remember when I had my second and third everyone asked me if I was disappointed and when I was going to try for a girl. Including my closest friends. They were worried for me that I wouldn’t have anyone to take care of me in my old age?! Interestingly, they both have two daughters and both of their daughters (and their grandchildren!) live overseas. My three boys all live a short drive away. My eldest just had a little girl by surrogate with his husband. My middle son has two sons already and my youngest just moved back in with us which I absolutely love. To be honest, I do understand people who feel gender disappointment, but in the long run, it’s the least interesting or defining thing about your children.”
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