Little girls vs. little boys

Intented Mommy and I went to an adoption open-house-type thing for some adoption agency a few months back. It was a 2-3 hour seminar type situation with a few speakers giving some basics about adoption and their agency in particular. One of the speakers--the owner or biggest shot in the room--posed a little riddle: why do people adopt little girls more often than little boys?* She said there was an answer that she was not going to tell us....ok, fine, food for thought.

I thought about this for a while trying to figure it out. The thing was that I always pictured us adopting a girl but wasn't sure why. On the other hand, I always imagined we would have girls naturally if that come had to pass. (My brother has two girls and, in a weird way, it just seems like girls are natural for our family right now. There are many more boys in the last 30-40 years and I think that the law of averages is making me subconsciously think of girls....anyhoo...I digress.) So why girls? There was presumably a logical explanation.

Ideas:
1 - Intended Mommy had told me (I don't know how true this is but I feel like she told me she knew it was true) that girls tend to take care of their parents when they get old. Ah-ha. That's why adopted parents want girls. To take care of them in old age. That seems pretty logical...but it didn't really resonate with me. Although, maybe, in part, I have the impression that boys are a little more rebellious and harder to control, more of a challenge to parent (which seems crazy since girls/high-school/dating seems like a nightmare) which dovetails nicely into the question of will the child be there to take care of you in your old age. This is also pretty culture dependent because often girls get married and become part of their new family and have responsibilities thereof.
2 - This is one I though of recently. One thing I grieve the most in this whole infertility experience is the whole miracle-of-life thing: the pregnancy, the newborn, the hospital,...the dream. If we had a little girl then chances are pretty good (although not guaranteed) that she would eventually have a baby the old fashioned way and we could vicariously experience the whole miracle-of-life thing that way.
3 - What else could it be?

Then I figured I would google for a while and see what the interwebs have to say. I found this old slate article: Why Do Adoptive Parents Prefer Girls. Of course, WDAPPG is the subtitle because slate.com just INSISTS on having some pithy little sophomoric catchy title for all their articles, hence, this one is called "Bringing Up Babes". Ahhhh, get it? Babes. Girls. A play on the famous old 1930s movie "Bringing Up Baby". Honestly, half the time I don't read these articles out of spite for the juvenile title! But, again, I'm off track...

So, according to slate it seems that there are a few things going on.
In a natural child birth, i.e., no infertility, no adoption:
- Men prefer boys
- Women prefer girls, although, women can be convinced to also prefer boys because boys pass down the family name which is, evidently, important to people.
- Add in a little bit of "boys play with boy dolls" (I know, action-figures!) and "girls play with girl dolls"--for example, my mom was SOOOO happy to finally have girls in the family (my nieces) so she could dress them up all pretty blah blah blah--and that adds to the gender preference even more.
That's the first part of the equation. The second is that:
- Women are usually the deciders (thanks W!) when it comes to the adoption process and make a lot of the decisions, hence, they tend to choose girls just like the "natural" situation--in which they don't really have a choice at all...just a preference
- When the men lose the genetic connection they figure "girls, boys, what's the difference?"

I guess that's it...the article goes in to much more detail. It's pretty interesting. But I wonder if that's all it is. The thing I find super fascinating is that in primate societies the males often are more bonded and protective of their sister's (is sister the right word?) offspring than their own. The reason is that there is a chance that their own offspring are not genetically connected to them, i.e., their ape of a spouse was a bit slutty. On the other hand, as long as they are sure that their sister is their sister, they can be sure that her offspring are genetically connected to themselves. Clever little monkeys, eh?

Lots of evolutionary stuff is involved in this sort of thing so I just wonder if there is more to the girls vs. boys thing in adoption.

Also, I read on the interwebs somewhere (where???) that maternal grandparents are often more involved and supportive of the adopted child than paternal grandparents. Apparently, the reason is that once the familial genetic connection is lost the paternal grandparents lose interest. Pretty lame, paternal grandparents, pretty lame.

* Obviously, there is the consideration of demographics and the fact that girls are more likely to be put up for adoption the world over and blah blah blah. But, the fact that adoptive parents prefer girls to boys persists when all this stuff is factored in.

Another Mother's Day

Another Mother’s Day has passed.
Luckily, I have pretty thick skin. We sent Intended D’s mother flowers for Mother’s Day. We missed her call and she left a message to thank us for the gift. In her excitement, the end of her message began with a “Happy Mother’s D……” and trailed off, and she quickly recovered with a “Happy-All the Women in Our Lives-Day!”… Bless her heart. I know she tries and I’m lucky to have parents and in-laws who try to be sensitive. Mostly it hit my sarcastic funny bone and I couldn’t help laughing at how thoughtlessly that came out of her mouth… and then I quickly quieted down because I didn’t want to hurt Intended D’s feelings.
Hell, even our home study social worker (who has years of experience and whom we connect with incredibly well) wished me a Happy Mother’s Day! I tried really hard to not be annoyed at her either. Her enthusiasm was out of trying to convince me that this whole adoption journey WILL have positive results and the word “motherhood” is now a safe word. But if my adoption caseworker says it, how can my mother-in-law know how taboo it is?

And so back to the pain of Mother’s Day. I have been able to see it strictly as a nuisance or an annoyance more than a painful experience. For me, it doesn’t rank with the twinges of pain I experience at the mention of baby showers, pregnant women, or boisterously proud new parents. I know I am lucky because I have a mom I get to celebrate. I don’t live near her but in my heart, it is a day that I relish my mother’s presence in my life, the influence she has had in creating the person I have become. I have too many friends who have lost their mothers. I grieve for those who don’t have a mommy to celebrate on Mother’s Day more than I grieve for myself for not having a baby to call me mommy.

Parent History Form

What to say? We're in the middle of the homestudy and just told our current apartment complex to take a hike along with their 14% increase in rent. Come on!!! So, we're moving down the street which delays the homestudy or costs us $350 more so they can come out and see our new apartment after we move..and still delays it. So, we're waiting on the home visit part of the homestudy.

Tomorrow, however, we have individual interviews with the case worker. It can all be very intrusive and humiliating and unfair if you think hard about it. Before that though we need to fill out our Parent History Form. It has 20 something questions such as,

"Describe the family in which you grew up. Please include parents' ages,... How often do you see them?"

"What was it like to be a child in your family?..."

"How long have you thought about adopting? Who spoke first of it?..."

Anyway, at the end of the day I rambled on and on like Jack Kerouac for 10 pages or so. Intended Mommy slapped down about 10 of her own. I had half a mind to say "Look, I have a blog with about 70 posts and I'm pretty sure all the answers to these questions are somewhere in there." Actually I think the blog helped a lot when it came to this form b/c not only had we thought a lot about stuff like this we also put finger to keyboard on a lot of it already.

Most adopters dread the homestudy. It's apparently full of lots and lots of paperwork and appointments. Actually most people bitch almost entirely about the paperwork.

It doesn't really seem so bad so far....