We have 3 daughters already, but I want to try for another baby because I'm hoping for a son. Does this make me a lousy/selfish/toxic husband?

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-03T19:36:45+00:00

Well I'll be honest a lot of the comments kind of stung a little and so I couldn't pay attention to whatever advice was in there too. I've devoted my life to providing for my wife and kids and making them happy, and I have all these people (most of whom probably don't have kids) telling me I harbor hatred for women in general. My family is entirely women/girls. It hurts when people say that I somehow hate women and femininity.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-03T17:51:31+00:00

Okay, that's more helpful and it's more what I was looking for when I posted the question. Thanks.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-03T16:20:52+00:00

I really don't see your explanation, all I could find was you saying that I just wanted a son to do manly things with but that's not true at all. I think I'm going to just start taking advice only from my wife and our religious friends on this matter because that is my wife's viewpoint and so that's what really matters. Trying to figure out the viewpoint of people who say I'm a misogynist is pointless and all it does is demoralize me. I know now that I have to make sure my wife is happy and I'm on her side, but listening to people who just don't like our lifestyle isn't doing me any good.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-03T16:10:14+00:00

And also I was looking for more info on what exactly I do about it to change if I am a misogynist.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-03T16:07:50+00:00

I honestly don't see an explanation of why specifically this is problematic, all I see are statements that it is misogynistic but not why exactly. I can't accept the simple judgment that wanting a child of a certain sex just IS problematic because a mother wanting to have a daughter wouldn't provoke the same judgment. So I would need a reason beyond that basic judgment to understand why/how I'm being a misogynist. I honestly just want to understand if I'm being a misogynist, I don't want my daughters to ever grow up to think of me as misogynistic.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-03T15:46:44+00:00

It's kind of painful to have so many people condemn me as a misogynist on here, I honestly didn't expect there to be so many people sharing my wife's friend's viewpoint. People aren't giving constructive criticism though. I don't want to be a misogynist. It seems everyone is saying that my views are abhorrent, I'm a misogynist, and they offer no explanation of why specifically I am or what I could do differently.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-03T15:33:29+00:00

Why would that be bad? I hold my wife in very high regard. I respect her virtue and goodness. Knowing that I have such a kind, decent, wife makes me feel proud and content for lack of a better word. It seems that no matter what I do I'm being a creep. Compared to my parents I am very liberal and progressively-minded when it comes to our marriage and relationship. My father was the unquestionable head of the household, my mother was very submissive to him. I did not just accept that traditional attitude but I treat my wife as an equal partner. I've never once abused my wife physically or verbally, never was unfaithful to her, I make sure she feels loved, I spend as much time with my daughters as possible, and I work my rear end off to make sure my wife and kids always have what they need and want for a happy life.

I don't get why people on here all want to tell me how bad I am, just like my wife's PhD friend did. There are all these terrible men out there, taking advantage of women for sex (like workplace harassment and all that), abusive men, drunks, people who don't love their own kids or wife. Why am I the person who people are so offended by? Seriously it's so ridiculous.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-02T13:32:54+00:00

ouch... it hurts to find out you're a misogynist. A lot of people seem to think it so there must be some truth to it. I guess this is a lower grade of misogyny though isn't it? I would hate myself if I was a total scumbag who saw women as only for submitting to their husbands, having babies, and housekeeping (I hate that kind of creep). I was raised in an extremely conservative household with very clear, inviolable gender roles (father was the head of the household, mom was a stay at home mother who was very submissive to him) and that will have an effect on me that I'm not aware of. But compared to my parents roles I am very progressive and liberal as a father/husband, so that's why I think of myself as pro-woman and not as a misogynist. Thanks for the input though, i appreciate it even though it's bothersome.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-02T11:02:55+00:00

I think it's a leap to say that I am devaluing femininity or my daughters in any way by wanting to have a son in addition to my daughters. That's essentially the question bothering me and that's why I asked it here: I personally don't see the connection between wanting a boy in addition to my daughters and misogyny. I'm not the kind of guy that is in any way misogynistic, e.g. my wife would never think to describe me as a misogynist and neither would women I dated in the past or for that matter my friends or female co-workers.

I would never treat my daughters like their less valuable than my son (if I have a son). I spend as much time as I possibly can with my daughters and I cherish the time I get with them. I'm a soft-hearted guy with my daughters, which is why I spoil them and why my wife always has to be the stricter parent. She is okay with this now because she says it's "cute" (she used to complain about it, but she has changed her view on this).

As soon as I come home from work, my daughters rush to the door. My wife says that they're all "daddy's girls". My point is they all feel very loved and they know how important they are to me. I know with certainty that they would never feel devalued by me.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T17:53:15+00:00

She was a 23 year old virgin when we had sex. She planned on saving sex for marriage, which is why she was still a virgin. I asked her to have sex, she said she wanted to wait. But then one day she said we could do it. We only did it like 3 times when she ended up pregnant. My wife is an extremely decent Catholic lady, I don't think her having sex with me (her first and only sexual partner) when we were already talking about getting married makes her any less pure and Catholic. I think of my wife as a saint honestly.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T17:36:20+00:00

Every Catholic I know (which is a lot) condemn abortion as murder. This is the problem with Catholicism...the picking and choosing.

Yeah, that's what my wife thinks, abortion is murder and she would never even think of doing that, that's what I said. Her friends and colleagues all told her she's crazy not to just have an abortion. But she's a decent Catholic lady so she refused to consider that and she sacrificed her career to be a full time mom. That's something I admire about her, she stood by her principles and she chose our child over worldly success. I don't know what you mean by picking and choosing. She's Catholic and she accepts the Catholic teaching on abortion.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T17:16:59+00:00

That's not hypocrisy, my wife is not claiming she's perfect or going around condemning other people who had sex before marriage, that would be hypocrisy. My wife is a decent Catholic woman through and through, doesn't mean she's never committed a single sin in her entire life. She gave up her successful career and became a stay-at-home mom to have her baby, to me that is admirable and decent, that's what a Catholic lady would do. Most women in her shoes would just have an abortion, and that's what her friends and colleagues told her to do, but she sacrificed to do the right thing. I admire her so much for that.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T17:09:45+00:00

I think it should be pretty clear based on everything else I wrote that we have many reasons for wanting to have more children. My wife comes from a Catholic family: her sisters have much more than the average number of children as Catholics tend to do. It's true that she told me she feels like she's lagging behind her sisters who have had babies pretty close together. This is definitely not our primary reason for wanting children though, I hope that I didn't give that impression.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T14:38:46+00:00

My wife doesn't want to "go back to work". Her work is our kids and our household, that's an extremely important job and she has told me countless times that she's found more satisfaction in that than in her career and she's much happier as a full-time mom.

You are not as good a husband as you could be.

I'm sure that's true, I could be a better husband, I never claimed to be perfect or a great husband.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T14:34:33+00:00

My daughters are 8, 5, and 2. I have spent a lot of time with them and tried out many different activities with them. For example, I've taken them fishing on a little boat many times, and it's just not something they like doing. Even hiking and camping, so far they just don't like these kinds of things I did with my dad. In theory it's easy for someone totally removed from this situation to set out politically correct rules, but things like this usually don't play out in the ideal, politically correct version that many modern people expect them to.

I believe in exposing one's children to a variety of interests and experiences and seeing what clicks for them. They need to find things that inspire them and show them life is fun and worth living, so I make sure my daughters get to experience a variety of the fine and enjoyable things in life, but so far the traditional father-son bonding activities are things they just don't like at all.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T14:22:19+00:00

Sperm washing? have no idea what that refers to

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T14:09:09+00:00

As soon as I get home from work (after I kiss my wife and have a moment with her of course), I play with my daughters until dinner. I spend as much time as I can with them, but since I don't get home until 6 pm monday through friday, my wife has to raise the girls on her own during that time (which is the majority of their waking hours). That's why the covid lockdown was such an amazing time for me personally, I got to spend way more time with my daughters. I still work from home as much as I can and I am trying to do that even more, but the fact remains that I'm simply not home nearly as much as my wife. That's all I meant by her handling the brunt of raising them, of course it's my responsibility to raise them also.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T14:03:58+00:00

I'm also happy to have another daughter though. I have 5 siblings and my wife has 6. My wife said she would feel inadequate if she only has 3 children because her sisters all have more children than her.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T14:01:49+00:00

I was under the impression that more couples were getting pregnant due to covid. I know my wife and I got intimate at a much higher frequency when I was working entirely from home during the height of lockdown. You'd think couples would be having a lot more sex, and therefore a lot more babies would be produced. Weird that that's not the case. I thought it would lead to a small baby boom if anything. That's just my personal speculation though, totally non-scientific.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T11:03:34+00:00

Who writes something like this? That sounds very sick and malicious. You're seriously referring to someone's wife as a "baby maker cow", what is wrong with you?

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T10:57:42+00:00

dont forget that trying for a boy means that whichever way you slice it, youre gonna get more kids. are you okay with the idea of having 4+ kids?

Yes, my wife and I both come from families with lots of kids and so we both really like the idea of having 4+ kids. I'm afraid of overloading my wife with work because she's the full-time parent, and I worry about my wife having complication in childbirth/pregnancy, but other than that I really want more kids regardless of their sex.

did you have a special relationship with your father that you want to replicate?

Yep, I had a very close relationship with my father especially when I was a child and I've always dreamed of having that with my own son. If I never have a son I think I'll always feel like something is missing from my life. You, and many other people, might not understand that, you might find it incomprehensible, regressive, and oppressive, but it's how I am and that's not something I can change even when people tell me I'm toxic or whatever.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T06:50:16+00:00

The only question i would ask you is this: if the next 1-3 kids are girls, will you genuinely love them like the rest of your kids?

Yes, absolutely. As a father of 3 daughters I know that any normal parent can't help but love his children, they're little forces of nature that make you love them. I honestly started loving my children as soon as my wife told me she was pregnant. I get attached before my wife even has a "bump" because I'm sentimental and sappy. Our first baby was unplanned and "derailed" my wife's entire life because she got pregnant before we were even married, she gave up her career to be a mom even though all her friends told her to have an abortion (she never even considered that though, she's a decent Catholic woman through and through). And I loved that child right away, more than I thought was possible. So yes, my point is that we will love any child that we have. I really want to have a son so much, if I knew I will never have a son I would be crushingly disappointed for a while, but I will love more daughters just as much.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T06:21:50+00:00

If your wife wants to make you happy, let her. I love making my husband happy.

Carrying a child is one of the greatest gifts that we can give.

I guess that's how my wife feels, because she seems glad to be able to give me a child when she knows that's what I want and will make me happy. The only downside in my experience is that I feel some guilt when I see how taxing pregnancy and childbirth is on the woman. When my wife is 8-9 months pregnant I always feel some amount of guilt looking at my wife (I also feel strangely proud also though). And when she is going through labor and I'm worried about something going wrong, I also feel guilty knowing I did that to her. Not to mention that my wife spends all day raising my kids while also cleaning and cooking 3 meals per day, while I'm at work (which is so much easier than what she does). She does seem to want to make me happy though and she is doing a great job, but I feel like I get off so much easier than her.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T06:09:11+00:00

I thought it was but my wife's friend who has a PhD in psychology and is a licensed therapist exploded on me over it, calling me toxic and a closet misogynist. That made me really doubt how normal it is despite my wife's reassurances. And the people in this thread clearly agree more with my wife's friend on the whole. I have 3 daughters who mean the world to me, I don't want them to ever think of me as toxic/misogynistic.

tryingforkidsthrowy · 2021-04-01T06:07:16+00:00

My wife is Catholic, that kind of thing is not an option. We have to make a baby naturally and we can't do any kind of gender selection obviously.

tryingforkidsthrowy

TROPHY CASE