You went for that check-up and found out the gender of your baby; congratulations, you can finally decide on a name and finalize the décor in the nursery. In case you are having a girl, there are certain things to consider.
Girls grow up to be six-year-olds, at which point they will have an opinion about everything. Then they will become teenagers and even more difficult. So what, you say; all teenagers are difficult. No. While boys merely turn into surly, incommunicative, invisible beings that you see maybe twice a week, girls won’t let you forget so easily. There are arguments to be had; arguments about clothing allowances, about boyfriends, girlfriends, about how much television to watch and what music to listen to. Arguments about which car to drive, where to drive it to, and what time to come home. And homework, what is homework? Who needs it? Like, right, you know, like. Whatever damage teenage girls will do to the English language in another 16 years or so doesn’t matter; they will argue.
Girls like pink. I know; it sounds sexist, bla bla bla, but the truth is, the power of pink is unstoppable. It’s build into their damn genes; add to that society’s prejudice, which will make every relative buy pink crap as soon as that ultrasound picture hits the streets, and you don’t stand a chance. If you tell people not to bring any of it into your house, they’ll just buy more. Car seats now come in pink, and so do strollers, baby baths, diaper bags. The sky’s the limit. By the time your daughter reaches her third birthday, you’ll be so entirely sick of it you’ll start thinking about giving her an Addams Family make-over.
Little girls like to grow their hair long, own lots of ‘hair thingies’ (official term) and have their hair done; except when that involves brushing out the tangles, which is always. When you’ve waited three days and can’t stand it anymore, you can spray her hair with the detangler and attempt to brush it; you’ll need two adults for this. One to hold her down, the other to brush. She will scream and add it to her list of things to blame you for later.
Girls hold grudges. They may not be able to remember things like “thou shalt not hit thy brother”, and have trouble recalling exactly what it was they were supposed to do for homework, but they remember real or perceived insults forever. If you try to vacuum and decide that those 23 pairs of Barbie shoes should be thrown away because she’ll never notice; think again: she will find out about it and tell her therapist all about it when she’s 28 years old and no longer talking to you.
Little girls like to play ‘pregnant’. I find this mind-boggling. I purposely didn’t buy my daughter any of those strange dolls that really pee and poop, and we certainly stayed away from ‘pregnant Barbie’. Still, they find out about this pregnancy thing and they run with it. They shove any doll or stuffed animal under their dress, causing them to walk around with a very strangely shaped hump on their belly, exclaiming Look, I’m pregnant! Isn’t this fun? It doesn’t matter that we repeatedly tell her that pregnancy before the age of 30 is simply not an option. You have to go to college, we say, and then grad school. And you have to travel, and get a good job, and travel some more. How are you going to combine all that?
Maybe if we repeat it often enough, we can instill some sense into her. She has to stop thinking pregnancy is fun before the age where she can actually become pregnant. The thought that that time is only about 8 years away is terrifying; it’s the stuff of nightmares, any parent of a girl can tell you that.
Girls like to dress up. This is something that doesn’t change as they get older; it merely evolves. They start with Disney dresses, mommy’s stuff (watch out) and princess crowns. They move on to God-knows-what. Honestly, I sometimes think one of the first full sentences that come out of any girls’ mouth is “I don’t want to wear that” or the equally tiresome: “Why can’t I wear that?” Ever since she was three, my daughter has been in the habit of changing 5, 6 times a day. It’s gone down a little now that she’s in school, but since she wears a school uniform, she still feels the need to change twice after coming home in the afternoon. She also has no clue when it comes to temperature-appropriate clothing. She’d leave the house in a tank top and shorts to go play in the snow, if only we would let her. But I don’t know if that is typical for all girls; it might be just that my own child is a little strange in that regard.
Girls like to cry when they don’t get their way. It’s practice for when they are old enough to date, or –god forbid- marry; it helps with the manipulation thing if you can produce tears at will. So they practice. And practice. And practice some more. They cry when they can’t find something, when you instruct them to finish their food, or when they have to wear a hat. They cry when they have to take a bath, when they have to come out of the bath, and when you tell them it is bedtime. They cry when they get in the car, when they come out of the car; when you take them shopping, or when they go to visit grandma.
You get the point; just remember, they’re not really sad, it’s all just rehearsal.
