What ultimately it boils down to, as Stephanie’s husband and dad learned through experience, is that joy can be found parenting a child of either gender, along with unique challenges.

I’m just trying to figure out how to teach a little boy how to pee standing up. It’s not something I’ve ever really had to ponder before, much less teach a toddler how to do it.

It’s easy to say, “Those bastards,” but you need to look at the background. In many cultures that favor male children, girls are effectively separated from their families at marriage. If you have a girl, you lose her to her husband’s family in ways that are hard to understand in Western culture (though we used to do the same). That might be acceptable, largely, if you have sons to carry your name or your business or take care of you when you get old. Ah yes.

In many of these cultures, it is the responsibility of the younger generation to care for their parents. Your daughter won’t care for you though, because it is her responsibility to care for her husband’s parents. Only your son. These cultures often don’t have retirement funds or pensions as we know it. Parents pour everything they have into their children, confident that their parents will repay them later.

Now, couple that with a one child per couple policy (as you have in China) and a longer lifespan, and sons are now taking care of parents and grandparents in both directions because there is no one else. I suspect that changes in the culture and what’s important will change, but it always changes slowly.

Ironically, my second husband was dead set against boys, just like my dad was. They both got some and learned to love them, but they favored girls more than a little. Odd, hunh?