May you be blessed with male children and female goats.

you're telling me about that...here in India it is a phobia of the worst kind. same asset and liability calculations. and it goes to the extent of heinous acts against girl child. and do you know what the irony is? we also have several goddesses whom we worship for wealth and prosperity. i would really like to get my hands on the person who started such an attitude.

Oh that is such a bad saying!!! That is very unjust to categorise children because of the gender...It is sad that it exists around the world!!! We have this culture of giving(while marrying off girls) and taking(when a man brings his bride) dowry. It is one of the main reasons which make people think low of having a girl. When a girl is born, it adds to the burdon of expenditure...there are people here who do not educate their girls...the reason is that there is no use of educating them, they are going to be married off, so it is only an added expenditure... People in some states do test to know the gender of the foetus and get it aborted if it is a baby girl...so the ratio of male to female is totally out of proportion there...now government has banned the test. Another reason why people prefer boys is that they expect the boy/s to take care of the parent in their old age, the daughter in law being brought to the house and live with them... In short, boys are seen as assets in all sense and girls as waste of money...But this is irrespective of the financial soundness of the family where the child is born. I know of families who ask for double or triple the standard amount of dowry for a dark /handicapped girl compared to a fair goodlooking girl...also the rate goes down if the girl is highly educated and highly paid...

I don't know much about the differences in perceiving boys and girls in my country, but there is a part of my country (or at least one part) where girls are referred to as "girls" and boys as "children". For example, if you meet a convoy coming home from the Church after baptising the newborn, they don't ask either it's a girl or a boy. They ask if it's "a girl or a child"...

Hi there my friend Theo. In my home country most couples wish to have a healthy baby and the gender doesn't matter. If pressed further they would say the ideal is a boy and a girl or a girl and a boy. Then a family would have both genders so would be complete. Personally before I had my children I hoped to have a girl and then a boy. However I had two sons and then a daughter. My children are now 14 years, 2 years and 10 weeks old.

I have never understod why but here in Italy it is usual to wish the bride and groom on their wedding day 'Congratulazioni e figli maschi!' - congratulations and SONS! Now why sons??? Surely they will not be a lot of good without someone's daughter in future years because, as we all know by now, 'behind every great man is a woman'

hi thea09 hatley here At one time I guess even here in the United States boys were more highly prized than girls as it'was at one time more of a farming county and boys were needed to work on the' farms but now I believe we women or girls rather are about equal on the scale of babies wanted.But still we are more heavily slanted towards the male thing. for example an orderly in most hospitals is paid quite a bit more than a nurses aid,womanthat is. I think its time we got paid the same amount as the guys for the same job and the same good quality of work. no more double standards. A woman plays around and she is called all the bad words in the book,yet a man does this and the other guys admire him. go figure.

That's very interesting Thea. But your explaination sounds typical as us ladies were not considered assest to the family but a liablity. I have no idea exactly how differently they were percieved as far as old sayings go. But you are right males are expected to keep & carry on the family name. I know in the olden days before there were many service jobs many farmers had large families not only to pass on the family name but to be free labor on the farm & of course there was not such thing as birth control either. As of course it was a womans duty to not only keep house, but have many kids weather or not she wanted to. My MIL had said when her grandparents were around her Grandmother was treated as such... her duties were too cook and keep house and of course perform in the bedroom and that was all she was good for according to her drunken poor excuse of a Grandfather. Sadly I'm sure it was that way in many families as us Women had no say until the last 100 yrs or so.

hi thea I think in our US we at one time did value boys more than girls because at first we were a farming' country and boys were needed to help run the farms and ranches but later on girls were just as favored as boys. but still a lot of people always say they want a boy baby first.But we no longer are treated as second class citizens except 'in the work place where we still get paid less than the guys for' the same type of work. This is still not really fair.

There's still gender bias, though not so much here in the US as other places in the world. You know, if that prayer came true for everybody, there'd soon be nobody left!!!

In my culture, there's not much different between boys and girls when it come to carrying the family bloodline. We don't carry the family name. Children will be name under the parents' name. So there's no question of whether he/she will continue the family name. The lineage will goes on through the bloodline. Dowry, in my culture, the woman received it. The male has to send the dowry. When it come to virtue, as the same as any part in the world, the woman is the most important.

This sounds gender-biased but I think it's more of a Toast. In some societies, a man who has a daughter will need to pay a dowry to either the groom, or the groom's family. I don't think it's anything more serious than that. Otherwise, Whew! There'd be no pretty ladies to choose from after several generations. Or no women at all! What is gender-based is that a woman's family does not get the same monetary regard. Hogwash!

Hello my friend You know what my friend I had this very lets see how can I say this,very womanly post to send you but I decided not to bother I will leave this one alone my friend and keep my opinions to myself for this discussion Men/Woman thing can be a very touchy subject for me that is lol

A male child certainly is more welcome. This is due to the fact that males can pass on their family name to their children therefore ensuring the "immortality" of one's family lineage. However, girls are welcome too. Girls are more fun to dress up.