Gender Anxiety: Why I Was Afraid to Have a Girl

A confession

I would have been very happy to have a whole soccer team of boys and not a girl among them. I had huge gender anxiety about my first child, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to lose a bet with my husband when we found out we were having a son. (I cried with relief and bought him a nice bottle of scotch.) I couldn’t really explain my fear of having a girl, but I was just that — afraid. Very afraid.

When I became pregnant with my second child, the anxiety was less, but still lurking. I had experienced unconditional love for my first child and knew in my heart that regardless of gender, I would love this one just as much. I started thinking critically about why I dreaded having a girl in the first place. It came down to this thought: “How am I supposed to raise a strong, confident, wonderful woman who knows how she fits into the world, when I feel like I’m still figuring that out for myself? It’s too much responsibility!”

Like so many women, growing up I struggled with accepting my appearance, dealing with boys/men/sexuality, figuring out my place in social groups, standing up for myself, finding my professional confidence, battling social stigmas, the list goes on and on. I was terrified at the prospect of raising a girl in a world that is so difficult to navigate, frequently oppressive, and always just a little bit scary. I didn’t feel worthy of that heavy honor. I worried preemptively for her self-image, her physical safety, her fragile optimism and confidence. How could I lift her up? How could I help her build a fortress inside herself to keep doubt and negativity and self-loathing at bay?

A realization

And I came up with this: I have to start with myself. If I want her to be unafraid, I have to be unafraid first. After all, that’s why parents everywhere take the first jump off the diving board and check under the bed for monsters at night — to show them there is nothing to fear.

I’m the first woman she will know deeply. I’m the woman setting an example for her daily. I had to remind myself that the scary parts of my own girlhood were over, and I had to take a look at my life as it is now. I’m a centered person, standing firmly on my own two feet, knowing who I am. And if anyone can help my daughter through the hurdles of girlhood, it’s me. “I can do this,” I told myself. And slowly, my fear and gender anxiety turned into determination. Not determination to raise my daughter to be some version of herself that I want her to be, but to help her free herself of anything that would hold her back in becoming who she wants to be.

A peace

Now, as I hold my very beloved daughter, I eagerly await all the difficult firsts, knowing some of the challenges she faces having seen them myself, and telling her with absolute confidence, “You can do it. We can do it. I’ll help you.”