My mother’s abandonment made me worry I’d ruin a daughter

San Francisco’s Clement Street was crowded with vegetable displays and pedestrians pulling rolling baskets as I navigated Tate’s stroller along the sidewalk toward 6th Avenue. My two older boys, ages six and four, tagged alongside of me with their hands grasping the stroller. Every so often we’d stop, and I’d select bananas or turnips from the displays and hand my money to an auntie behind the kiosk.

As we waited in line to buy har gow and pineapple buns, a tiny Chinese grandmother nodded at me. “You’re so lucky!” she said while smiling at my three boys. “Such a blessing.”

“Thank you.” In my part of San Francisco, Chinese aunties loved to comment on my gaggle of boys and my good fortune. It had been explained to me that both boys and the number 3 were considered lucky, and I had hit the jackpot.

“Now you need two daughters.” She paused. “One daughter would be unlucky, but two can be a comfort to their mothers.” Auntie clicked her tongue. “Four is not a good number.”

I bristled — not because I didn’t want five children, but because I did not want a daughter. I never had. In fact, when the sonogram tech announced we were having a third son, we — me, my husband and two older sons — literally cheered.

I placed my money on the countertop for the cashier and looked at my amazing boys. I did not want a daughter. Not now. Not ever.

My oldest son, Ryan, frowned. “We don’t want a sister, do we?”

“No.” I dropped my change into my wallet. “We do not want a sister.” I shoved Tate’s stroller through the narrow door and back onto the bustling sidewalk. “Let’s go to Toy Boat for ice cream,” I said, tapping down the discomfort stirring inside me. “You’ve been good boys today.”

As we walked, I tried to let go of Auntie’s words, but she had hit on something I had struggled with for years. Girls terrified me, and I knew I was completely ill-equipped to parent one.

My childhood lacked female role models. My mother’s abandonment scarred me, and her leaving created a deep distrust of female relationships in me. The men in my life were reliable; the women were non-existent.

My widowed grandfather and dad did their best to provide a stable, loving environment for my sister and me, but until my dad remarried, I had no real experience with adult women aside from my teachers. My dad signed me up for softball, cheerleading, and dance to get me around other girls, but I was shy and wouldn’t talk. Eventually, the girls stopped trying to include me which fueled my belief that girls were cliquish, mean, and not worth my time.

As a teenager, I decided I was a guys’ girl. By this point, I viewed groups of girls and their fluctuating alliances with suspicion and believed the only way to protect myself from their rejection was to avoid female friendships all together. I surrounded myself with guys, played into the ‘cool girl’ stereotype, and told myself that all female relationships were toxic.

I wiped chocolate ice cream off Tate’s mouth and dropped the balled napkin on the table. Ryan and Leo had finished their treat and were lost in conversation. “Are you guys ready?”

“Mom?” four-year-old Leo asked. “We don’t want girls, right?”

I sighed. “Girls are great,” I answered. “But I’m not a girl mom.” I tickled his neck, and he giggled. “I’m a boy mom. I like stinky boys.”

Ryan laughed and jumped out of his seat. He wrapped his little arms around me. “You’re our mom.”

I kissed his head. “One-hundred-percent.”

We were joining friends at the playground and needed to hurry. As we walked up 8th Avenue toward Blue Park, I replayed Auntie’s conversation. Why was I so afraid of daughters? My girlfriends with daughters often said they felt deeper connections to them than their sons — who occasionally felt like foreign species. Unlike them, I felt deeply connected to my sons. I understood them and never puzzled over their behavior. They made sense to me.

And I believed — despite what Auntie said — my sons were a sense of comfort and they’d never abandon me. We were an indivisible family unit and nothing would change that.

Until I married James, I had never had a nurturing mother figure in my life. My mother-in-law, Molly, embraced me and loved me like I was hers. She nursed me through three increasingly difficult pregnancies and never wavered in her support as I transitioned from a newlywed to young mother to a devastated wife.

At first, her attention was like a scratchy, ill-fitting wool sweater, and I wanted to rip if off and run. In fact, once, in a fit of pregnancy delirium, I asserted she only tolerated me because I could breed children. Molly had wanted a large family, but James was her only child and in my hormonal brain my accusations made sense. To her credit, Molly was not offended. She simply continued to support me in her sweet, gentle way.

A few weeks before having Ryan, I confided that I was happy he wasn’t a daughter. Molly shook her head at me. “Every child is a gift. Never forget that.”

I wanted to believe her, but during my next two pregnancies I couldn’t get past my belief that I would ruin a girl. I worried I wouldn’t be a good role model or that I’d abandon her when things became too hard. But the honest reason I feared having a daughter is that I didn’t want her to leave me or hate me or be indifferent to me.

I didn’t want her to look at me and see failure. I believed a girl would better see my short-comings than a boy. After all, I had a lifetime of convincing boys and men to like me, but I had kept girls and women at distance most of my life.

Now, I understand my fear of having a daughter was actually a fear of replicating my maternal abandonment trauma. Crazy how that kind of stuff lasts a lifetime and trickles down across generations.

My sons are young adults now with serious girlfriends, and I adore the young women in their lives. While I never wanted the responsibility of raising a daughter, I appreciate the wonderful young women my sons have brought into my life and I hope one day, I will have the same loving, respectful relationship with my daughter-in-laws that Molly and I had. And I know, despite my history, I will be an amazing grandma to any little girl who blesses our family.