{"id":422,"date":"2009-10-18T17:21:18","date_gmt":"2009-10-19T00:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=422"},"modified":"2009-10-18T17:24:44","modified_gmt":"2009-10-19T00:24:44","slug":"gender-disappointment-disorder-no-wonder-were-so-screwed-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=422","title":{"rendered":"Gender disappointment disorder: No wonder we’re so screwed up …"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was talking with my wife this afternoon.\u00a0 It has been awhile.\u00a0 I was on the road three of every four days over the past two weeks and she’d spent the weekend with the kids in Richmond.<\/p>\n

It was good to talk.<\/p>\n

And as is usual, my wife did most of the talking.\u00a0 That’s because she usually has more interesting things to say than I do.<\/p>\n

\"200600100050015003400179679\"And then she talked about something that floored me.\u00a0 It is a new mental disorder that, according to my wife will likely be headed to the DSM IV<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 For the uninitiated that is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 My wife should know.\u00a0 She’s a licensed social worker who works for the county mental health system.<\/p>\n

The disorder?<\/p>\n

Gender disappointment disorder.<\/p>\n

That is, people getting depressed, anxious, pissed off, and otherwise mentally unbound because the baby was a boy … and they wanted a girl.\u00a0 Or vice versa.\u00a0 Yes, friends, this is a real issue with today’s parents.\u00a0 This, according to an article in Elle <\/strong><\/a>magazine by Ruth Shallitt Barrett entitled “Girl Crazy:\u00a0 Women Who Suffer from Gender Disappointment.”<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

As one would think given the source, Elle focuses on women.\u00a0 Specifically, the article is a series of stories of women who are depressed, medicated, and miserable … all because they had a little Johnny instead of a little Jane.\u00a0 (Apparently most women desperately want girls, not boys.)<\/p>\n

You really have to read this stuff to believe it.\u00a0 And even after I read it I find it difficult to believe.\u00a0 Here’s one of my favorites …<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way society is now\u2014I feel there\u2019s a preference for girls,\u201d says Linda Heithaus, a marine biologist from Hollywood, Florida, who has two sons and is contemplating doing IVF\/PGD in the hope<\/a> of getting a girl. \u201cThey can do everything a boy can do, plus you can dress them up. It\u2019s almost like, to fit in, you need to have one.\u201d\u00a0 Girls, in other words, are boys plus. They can play sports and have careers, and you can dress them in pink and take them to tea at the American Girl caf\u00e9. What\u2019s not to like?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are no shortage of heated discussions on the subject.\u00a0 Go to BabyGaga<\/a><\/strong>, or Just Mommies<\/strong><\/a> or the talk on Digg <\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is easy to wonder what is worse — these women having little boys and suffering mental illness … or these women having little girls and having the little girls suffering a mental illness.<\/p>\n

Someone needs to tell these people that having a baby isn’t like going to Starbucks and ordering a half-caf latte.<\/p>\n

Hey gals, it is not about you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was talking with my wife this afternoon.\u00a0 It has been awhile.\u00a0 I was on the road three of every four days over the past two weeks and she’d spent the weekend with the kids in Richmond. It was good to talk. And as is usual, my wife did most of the talking.\u00a0 That’s because…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=422"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":426,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions\/426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}