Son Told He Lacks Compassion For Not Understanding His Mom’s ‘Gender Disappointment’ — ‘I Ruined Her Dream Of 4 Daughters’
His mom treats him like the problem child she never wanted.
New Africa | Shutterstock Most parents would probably admit to having a preferred gender when expecting a baby. However, most would agree it truly doesn't matter in the end. When the baby finally arrives, their joy overshadows everything else.
One mother just couldn’t do that, however, and it has affected her son greatly. She actually seems to harbor resentment for her firstborn because he wasn't born a girl.
A mom who only wanted daughters has never been able to move on from her firstborn being a son.
A 16-year-old boy took to Reddit to share his sad story and ask for advice on his own reaction to it.
“My mom never wanted a boy,” he explained. “She wanted girls. Apparently her dream was four daughters. But she had me … first.”
The teen son went on to detail the painful reminders of just how disappointed his mom was by him.
“I have seen photos and videos of the day I was born. She cried hysterically when they told her I was a boy,” he said. “Then she refused to hold me. After we were cleaned up she cried about not using the name she had chosen and said she didn’t know how to move on from it. All this was caught on camera.”
Thankfully, his paternal grandmother stepped in to care for him until she passed away eight years later.
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“My mom had my sister ‘Lily’ two years after me,” he continued. “So mom got her girl and Lily got all her attention.”
“My mom and Lily are super close and mom adores Lily,” he stated.
“Lily got the bigger bedroom, she gets the gifts, she gets all her favorite snacks, she gets to do all the extracurricular activities she could ever want and her birthdays are huge parties with huge gifts.”
The son's behavior has started to reflect his feelings of neglect.
“My mom’s family don’t act too interested in making up for my lack of parental love,” he said. “And in the last couple of years mom and I have argued more and I give her a hard time. Dad’s never around to give him one. But mom? If she wants to ignore me then she can hear how [expletive] it is and if she wants to treat my sister like a perfect angel then she can hear about it.”
Unfortunately, his extended family is no help. “We were at mom’s parents’ house Friday and mom gushed about Lily doing good on a project and the scooter she got Lily to help her get around easier … She couldn’t stop talking about it and I told her she really does love to shower her favorite in gifts and praise.”
Instead of supporting him, his family sided with his mom. “My mom’s family told me I should take it easier on her and said I should understand we had ‘some little trouble’ because of mom’s gender disappointment,” he shared. “I told them I don’t owe her [expletive] because she had gender disappointment and that I didn’t ask to be born to a mom who only wanted daughters. They told me I lacked adult understanding and compassion.”
Gender disappointment is a very real thing.
Although it may not be discussed often, Parents Magazine confirmed that gender disappointment occurs when a parent has “feelings of sadness and disappointment when the biological sex of your baby-to-be is different than you’d hoped for.”
However, Parents also noted that gender disappointment does not usually last. “Indeed, for many parents, the disappointment subsides once you actually meet your little one,” they said.
To continue to treat your son poorly into his teenage years because you wanted a daughter goes beyond disappointment.
It is resentment that really borders on abuse. This mom should have accepted that she had a son and been happy to have a healthy baby instead of letting her bitterness fester.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news and human interest topics.