Comments on: U.S. Births Hint at Bias for Boys in Asian Families

By: telsing

telsing — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:49:20 +0000

I think many other cultures have preferences for males. And so I never thought much as my asian friend had girl after girl, four daughters before she had a son. Later my husband and I adopted our daughters from China which spun me on my ear in terms of how I perceive it.

We have run into this male preference time and again in our local asian community but attending a Chinese church exposed me to the fact that this is not an old school only attitude, it continues with the next generations. Ofcourse at church no one is admitting to abortions over it but....

I'm conflicted- it is my desire for my kids to have connections to their culture and community vs. this crazy mommy bear instinct for not wanting my dd's to be exposed to this bias any further than they already have.

By: telsing

telsing — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:49:20 +0000

By: tung2sai

tung2sai — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:54:14 +0000

I'm not sure if that is an appropriate analogy regarding choice over preference for boys and snorting cocaine. There are quite a few fundamental differences between the two. I understand the importance for discussion though. Sometimes when we look at Statistics, understand that those numbers only give you a general impression within a sample pool of people based on an assumption that it can “hopefully” represent a larger population.

It's not a big shocker of Asian families wherever they are in the world that there is a bias for boys and of course, there are many discussions on what to do to balance that mentality. This is a very old issue, not limited to Asians, and even though there are families out there that appear to be progressive, it will take time to change the attitude of an entire community.

By: ErnieAtLYD

ErnieAtLYD — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:51:04 +0000

@murdoc2009: It's a 50/50 chance, but they're saying that if the first child is a girl, the rate is higher for the parents to try to conceive ANOTHER child, hoping that it'll be a boy.

By: murdoc2009

murdoc2009 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:42:43 +0000

“But in American families of Chinese, Korean and Indian descent, the likelihood of having a boy after the first child is a girl goes up to 1.17 to 1. If the first two kids are girls, the ratio of the third child being a boy goes up to 1.51 to 1″

Umm, am I missing something here, but there is a 50/50 chance of having a boy/girl, just because you have a girl first, doesn't mean you have a higher chance of having a boy for your next child.

By: LindaChan

LindaChan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:32:18 +0000

Yes, it's their choice. We should all be able to make decisions regarding our own bodies. But that doesn't mean the issue shouldn't be up for discussion, or debate. For example, I can choose to snort cocaine. My body, my choice. But if I was found in possession of it, I could go to jail. It shouldn't always be about choice, or just choice. Some choices are right and some are wrong. I can make that call for myself, and you can disagree. Still, we shouldn't push it under the rug by saying “well, *shrug*, it's their choice.”

By: Confuse_Us

Confuse_Us — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:13:08 +0000

Well I'll have to disagree and say that it is entirely about choice. What individuals do with their bodies is entirely up to them. Don't forget that a foetus is not technically a girl, boy or homo sapien until it's born or it possibly reaches the 2nd tri-mester. That's why abortion can be legal and that's why it's possible to destroy a 1 month old female foetus but not a 1 month old female baby.

People may not like it, and I certainly wouldn't abort for that reason, but I don't believe that people have to legally, or morally justify their reasons for aborting. If they did, then we wouldn' have the choice to begin with.

Then there's the dilemma of continuing to have more kids than you can afford until you get the correct gender, which is what some people do. Is that more moral? I just don't think there's a middle ground, it is pro-choice, or pro-life, and if we accept pro-choice we have to live with reasons that people have for making their choices, even when we don't like it. It's their choice.

By: nemogbr

nemogbr — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:02:47 +0000

Three total children in my family. The youngest is my sister. my family tended to have large families, but my parents wanted one of each.

I never knew till this article came out that the same mentality pervades East Asian communities, in Western Society.

I know of the 50 million women missing in India and I think the total is 100 million. In Britain, the Doctors no longer tell the prospective British Asian (Indian, Pakistan, Bangladesh) parents the gender of the foetus.