It's A Girl!

In honor of Father's Day, I am going to tell the story of how the men in my family became fathers, particularly my own dad and my grandparents.

Now, my parents were immigrants from Taiwan and my sister and I are the first generation of Taiwanese-Americans in our family. So a lot of the customs that my parents grew up with have been lost with us. But one them has been particularly pervasive in our lives.

Patriarchy, aka girls are worthless.

My grandfather on my mother's side is a very successful tycoon in Taiwan, so after he reached a level of success in business, all he wanted was a son to pass his name, legacy, and business onto. Unfortunately for him the first offspring was a daughter (my mother) as were the subsequent four girls. At the fifth girl, my youngest aunt, when the nurse told my grandmother, "It's a girl!" my grandmother literally burst into tears at the prospect of having another child.

Because there really was no other option. My grandfather was (and still is) he patriarch of the family so if he wanted a son, a son was what he was getting. Eleven years after giving birth to my mom, with four other daughters in between, they finally had a son, the son who would carry on the family name and who would be the proud offspring that would care for them in their old age and bring the family pride. It's almost like the story of Henry VIII, except with fewer beheadings.

Except...my uncle JoJo was so spoiled throughout his life that he is now 41 and unemployed, never having had a job in his life, and his wife and three children all live on a stipend from my grandfather. I'm not still not sure what the kids say when their friends ask what their parents do for a living. "Grandpa sends Daddy checks every month because he was born a boy?"

Not that I don't love JoJo. He is far and away my favorite uncle, partly because he lived with us when we were growing up and since he was only 13 years older than me, he always seemed more like an older brother than an uncle to me. Just as now, I feel much more like an aunt to his three children than their cousin, especially given that I am 24 years older than the youngest.

My aunts were not given any of this special treatment and have all turned out to be successful women with families of their own. I think it's pretty awesome that they have all become successful in their own right with minimal help from my grandfather, whereas JoJo is a homemaker for his kids and doesn't have to work since he was born with a penis.

No, I find this whole patriarchy nonsense kind of hilarious, because if you look at it any other way it really is just tragic. So I just listen to this kind of stuff and laugh. But my sister E, oh my crusader the sister E, thinks this is the most unfair thing ever and gets heated up when we discuss JoJo's situation. She wants to sit down our grandfather (once again, the patriarch of our clan), wag her finger in his face, and say, "Well, I hope you have learned your lesson that spoiling your son does not amount to anything good."

I'm sure he'll be quite receptive when she gives him that piece of her mind. I just can't wait to watch.

So the next reasonable assumption is that my parents were hoping for at least one boy in their family. My paternal side was hoping for a male to carry on our family name and my maternal side just wanted a boy because boys are better than girls. (Duh.) They got pregnant only about a year after getting married and even though my parents were struggling immigrant graduate school students, they were ecstatic to have a baby and never considered any other options but keeping it.

Since they hadn't lived in the country long enough to even have health insurance, my mother skipped any sonograms that were available at the time and they opted to wait to find out the sex of the baby. Her mother (my grandmother) and my uncle JoJo flew out a week before her due date to be there when the baby was born. After all, it was to be the firstborn of the new generation, the eldest child of the eldest daughter.

So, on this momentous occasion, they were all crossing their fingers that a healthy boy would be born. And out pops, well, me. It was the first in a long series of woes I would bring to my parents.

My grandmother wasn't allowed in the delivery room, so through the glass window of the waiting area my father had to convey to my grandmother what sex the baby was. So he chose a thumbs down. And my grandma's face fell.

That's right. All those hopes, all those dreams, all that time out the birthing canal, and all I got at the end of that long ride was a thumbs down because I didn't have a penis.

Eventually, they all came to terms with the fact that I was a girl (kind of) and found other things to criticize instead, like the fact that I had naturally dark skin (like the farmers' kids do), and that I was extraordinarily fussy as a child, so much so that I wouldn't let anyone but my mother or JoJo carry me. And later I would start hitting, biting, and throwing fits, but that's a story for another time.

Four years later, my little sister was born, putting an end to my parents' attempts at continuing the family name. Unfortunately, my father's only brother had three girls, so my paternal grandfather is devastated that we are the end of the line.

My mother claims that my father is happy that he had two daughters, but I find it highly suspect that there isn't an ounce of disappointment that he didn't have a son to pass his genes and name onto. I'm pretty sure that this is why my parents chopped all my hair off when I was six and I was mistaken for a boy for the entirety of first grade.

So, sorry Dad, on this Father's Day, I apologize again for being born female (and for being so adamant that I only wanted a little sister, not a brother, which obviously had an impact on the outcome). But I leave you with this tidbit of wisdom, which I am hoping my sister will also impart to our grandfathers:

Girls rule.
Boys Drool.