“Oh, you’re all set now that you’ve had a girl.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry any more now that you have another child, and a girl at that!”

“Don’t you feel like your family is complete now?”

All of these sentences have been directed at me, by relatives and good friends alike, and all with the best of intentions, I’m sure.

At the time, I simply nodded my head in agreement, but upon further reflection, I’m sort of angry.

Oh yes, my former meaningless life is now filled with purpose now that I’ve had a girl and I can die happy.  And yes, our family wasn’t right without another person in it.

Not.

Were they meaning to imply that by having one child, my family was somehow not good enough? That it didn’t fit into whatever perfect 2.5 child per family model they were thinking of?  As if there even was such a thing?

Even though I love my daughter with all of my heart, and she is certainly a welcome addition to our family, I’d like to focus on the word addition. Our family was just fine as the three of us, thank you very much. The Munchkinette will bring much additional love and laughter, but her presence didn’t suddenly make us a “real” family.

And the comment about how I should be completely satisfied now that I’ve had a girl also rubs me the wrong way. If my second child had been a boy, would people have clucked in sympathy for me that I didn’t have a girl? I do happen to know people who have tried multiple times to have a girl, with varying degrees of success. But for the ones that have three boys, is their family less of a family because there is only one X chromosome in the house? 

So maybe I’m being hormonal, or a little oversensitive.  But I sometimes wish people would just, you know, think before they speak.