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Girl! I still can’t believe it. I had a feeling since the last ultrasound that we probably had a girl on our hands, but I couldn’t be sure. Now that we know, I feel like I have to be honest. The thought of having a girl scares the crap out of me. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t want a little girl. I picture her little pig tails (thick, wavy ones like mine, not small like my sister’s) and pink pajamas, and tutus and I can’t even begin to describe how emotional that makes me. But aside from all those fun things about girls, I am worried. In case you are thinking that I am crazy, let me remind you of a few things about girls. I am a girl. I know the psychological damage that we can inflict on to our parents and those around us in our teen years. It is not pretty. Second, do you know how much it costs to buy a prom dress vs. rent a tuxedo? Exactly.

Those things are trivial and I know with some good medication and a qualified therapist, Mike and I WILL make it through her teen years. The more serious reason that I get scared about having a girl probably comes from the gender based work that I do for a living. I am constantly bombarded with messages and reminders everyday of the inherent disadvantage that simply being born with two X chromosomes gives a person. I hear about women earning less money, women being torn between career and family, and all the things women are told they can’t do as well as men. And that doesn’t even begin to address the issues of violence against women that I work on every day.

What scares me the most is that so many people in the world fail to recognize that these inequities still do in fact exist in our society. Even my own son made a comment the other day that reminded me that even my children are not immune from societal messaging and social norms. I took him to a Bismarck Demon basketball game at the Civic Center to check out the local team. The girls’ team played the first game and throughout the whole thing, he kept asking me when the Demons would be coming out. Based on the messages he has received and what he knows in his little almost three year old world, boys are athletes and girls are not. Kinda sad when you think about it.

I know that things will work out and I don’t have to take on the weight of the world when this baby girl is born and that I am certainly not the first person in the world to have a baby girl. I know this. I also know that I have a lot to offer her as a woman and that she has plenty of strong women in her life to learn from. She will be surrounded by kind, strong and powerful women. She won’t know this until she’s older, but my mom overcame so much to provide a good life for her daughters and my sister amazes me with her strength every day. My mom and sister are two of the strongest women I know and if she is ANYTHING like either of them, I know she’ll be just fine. And those are just two of the women that will be part of her story. There are wonderful examples and role models for her to look for everywhere. This helps me know that things will be okay. And it is possible to raise a happy, healthy, successful girl even in today’s society.

It’s amazing that I can already be so worried about someone who has yet to even meet the world.