Double Standard

I’ll let you (girls) in on a secret: A ton of guys want to have sons.

As far back as I can remember, the guys I knew would always say they would rather have sons than daughters and this makes sense in some ways. It’s not like a guy knows a girl intimately (not sexually but deeply, know what I mean?) or at least not intimately like a guy knows guys. I mean, I know that most boys love to climb trees and get dirty. Most like playing with toy guns and enjoy seeing destruction occur and bad guys get what’s coming to them in cartoons and whatnot.

Girls may SAY they enjoy the same thing, but we never know for sure. Girls are so… alien.

And then there’s sex. Every guy I’ve ever talked to about the subject all say the same thing, that they would much rather have a son because it is much easier to guide a son toward sexual conquests (not necessarily pushing him to have sex or to have sex with a ton of people, but to give them handy advice like how girls can change their mind and you need to accept it and not show frustration, or how you should stand up for your date) and at the very least prevent them from getting punched in the face by their date or have their date file charges of sexual assault or worse. How bad would you feel as a parent if you just assumed that they would come by these lessons naturally and they didn’t?

Anyway, it’s much easier to give your son handy advice like that than it is to undoubtedly stay up all night worrying about whether your daughter’s date’s father taught HIM those much-needed lessons. Because if he didn’t and his boy hurts your little girl the gloves are off and you’re being carted off to jail.

That sounds like a ton of stress.

Honestly though, I’m not worried. I’m sure my daughter will grow up and be a beautiful young lady and the boys will probably be calling but I hope to be a good enough father that I can instill some guidelines and who is good and not good to date.

For instance: “Never date a boy who spits. If his slobber isn’t good enough to be in his mouth it’s not good enough to be in yours.”

That’s a pearl of wisdom I will definitely pass along.

I’m being completely honest here, I’m not worried about raising a quality human being that happens to be a girl.

I am kind of worried about raising a boy though. As far as traditional “man stuff” goes, I’m not keen. I don’t like to hunt, don’t really like to play sports, I’m not really into guns and the idea of watching football all day isn’t appetizing at all. I know nothing about cars, I don’t body-build, and I’ve never been the kind of guy to go out and actively pursue girls in clubs or bars or get togethers. Basically your stereotypical guy, I am not.

And I’m not saying I want to raise that guy either, but if he happens to be interested in that kind of stuff I’m going to be there to at least try to help him out with it and I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I think I’m trying to say that regardless of the kind of son my song will naturally be, I’ll try to be the best dad I can be regardless of interest. I’m still tasked to raise a decent human being, not a pro quarterback.

Ah, I’ll probably stop worrying about it once the baby’s born. I know I was pretty worried about raising a little girl (because they’re aliens, you know?) but I think I’m doing a fairly good job. Most of the credit goes to my wife though.

I’m sure it’ll be the same way with the next one, regardless of the sex. I'm sure in the end I'll be the best dad I can and I'm pretty comfortable with that. I don't think it'll be TOO hard to adjust my ideas once the baby's here, but for right now I'm a little nervous.