Re: ...Son vs. Daughter...
Excuse me... i know it is sad that people have such thinking but why are we stereotyping here??? It is not just the desi mentality, it is all over the place.
My first two are girls mashAllah. When i was expecting the third one about two years ago, all my doctors, colleagues, neighbors, and the teachers at the girls school (whites, African-American, Chinese/Koreans) were wishing me to have a boy and were so happy for me when they heard the news of the baby boy. They always asked me that since i had two girls, did i want a baby boy so badly???? and everytime my reply was "all we want and pray for is a complete, healthy baby... doesn't matter if it's a girl or a boy." and these were the true feelings that I and hubby had at that time... we never gave it a seconds thought that whether the baby we were having was a girl or a boy.... and I believe every parent initially thinks that way, it is just the social pressure that makes them think otherwise...
(This is not to say that desis were being so nice and open with me when i was expecting, infact they were wise enough to keep their words inside their mouths in order to avoid an earful in return.)
Besides my own experience, once we were at the Cartoon's Cut to get Jazib a haircut and there was this gora guy with his five daughters.... and oh boy, was he a real pissed off.... Right in front of his five little innocent daughters he was telling the hairdresser that how miserable his life was to have all daughters and how badly he wanted a son.
I can also recall an episode from Nanny-911 where this one guy was always playing with and paying attention to his boy while ignoring his girls, and he was unable to see the desire of paternal love in his daughters eyes.
So yeah it's everywhere... the preference of having boy over girls or to pissing the parents off to somehow create only a boy inside the mommy's tummy will always be prevailed.... Stone Age or the Space Age, it doesn't matter!