The Household COO

Traditional Chinese families often have a preference for offspring of the male gender. This predilection dates back to a historical era when females who were married off where no longer considered a part of the family. Once married, they became a part of their husband’s family and were cut off completely from their own family. Male offspring, on the other hand, formed the foundation for the next generation within family and hence the reason why they were valued more highly. They were responsible for carry the family name and ensuring the family prevailed (much the same way as a dynasty).

Of course, in this current day and age, such traditions no longer apply. A daughter still remains very much a part of her own family regardless of whether she is married or not. Even so, we still observe the bias for male offspring which has resulted in China’s imbalanced ratio of men to women which is progressively getting worse with their one-child policy.

This bias was still evident up to my parent’s generation. My FIL had a friend whose wife was made to take a cab to the hospital whenever she went into labour because she was carrying a girl. The only time that the husband ever went to the hospital was for the birth of their last child, because she was delivering a son.

Up until recently, I thought that this age-old Chinese bias had ended with the last generation. I know a couple who were living in Sydney. When the wife became pregnant, her hubby automatically assumed she was carrying a boy. He was so insistent that it was a boy that he would always tell her, “Make sure you take care of my son.”

Recently, she had an ultrasound check to determine the sex of her baby and the doctor told her that her baby was a girl. She called the hubby and told him over the phone. He swore in Chinese, “T.. N… Ma!”

Now the most amazing part is this: the hubby is a doctor who spent most of his life growing up in Australia.

Lucky his wife is keen on a girl. Poor dear. This whole thing has made me reassess my own bias for a girl. I have decided not to talk about wanting a girl any more. I don’t want Gavin to feel that his Mummy didn’t want him because he was a boy.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 7:13 am and is filed under Traditions, baby, boy or girl. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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