Daughters Are Great, But ...

Aaron Traister is thrilled to have a daughter—“I was just as excited about my daughter as I was about my son,” he writes. “And she's even better out of the belly.” But the nagging preference for male children in our society has him doubting his own emotions. “If she had come first,” he frets, “would I have been as excited about her arrival? Would I love her just as much?”

Though he can’t explain it, Traister saw the preference for boys firsthand while his wife was pregnant with their second child. Even their “perpetually sensible Indian pediatrician” weighed in with “little girls are very special. But then they turn into teenage girls.” A friend whose son had serious medical problems as an infant said, “I'm just glad we didn't have a girl.” And then there’s talk of the Jonas Brothers and other indignities. Sure, Traister writes for Salon, he loves his daughter; but why is the "the baby boy victory lap" still out there? (More parenting stories.)