Life has different tests for each one of us. One finds people longing for kids, others having too many, some wanting a particular sex a son or a daughter, some having either of the two too many.
Sometimes I wonder about this cultural obsession to have sons prevalent in India and China which has impacted female infanticide and our population growth at large. Its sheer social and cultural pressure created with no biological or rational relevance. A classic example of unwanted cultural stress. China announced a one child policy, which limits couples to having one child, though allowing exemptions for several cases, including rural couples, ethnic minorities, and parents without any siblings themselves. The policy limits couples to one child. Fines, pressures to abort a pregnancy, and even forced sterilization accompanied second or subsequent pregnancies. The rule has been estimated to have reduced population growth in the country of 1.3 billion by as much as 300 million people over its first twenty years.
In India the social pressure is lived as a “natural yearning” to have “an heirloom” in the cultures that follow patriarchy. Women even in educated, upper middle class & elite strata of society are not exempt from becoming victims to this crazy “emotional/ social” demand. If you think about it, each kid whether male or female has the genetic components of both his parents so biologically it represents genes of both families. Nature is so just but we make life complicated by endorsing one sex with carrying family name for social reasons as if the other sex is any lesser to do the same. In reality each of them is carrying the family genetic legacy through them.
Culture socialization or whatever the right word takes its toll on the women in a lopsided way especially in these two countries. Sad but true.
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