my sweet little man and i went to walmart the other day to pick up a few things (yard waste bags were on sale 10 for $3.77!) … we were strolling through the baby/toddler section when i overheard a woman in another isle say, “i wish i had a little girl. it would be so much fun dressing her up and playing.” to which another voice replied, “me too, i really wish i had had a girl.” a few moments later 2 young girls walked around the corner, one with 2 boys in a double stroller and the other with a little guy about the same age as my son in her stroller.

my jaw dropped and my eyebrows raised. here were 2 women with (what appeared to be) healthy children, shopping and casually talking about how they wish they had daughters instead of sons. it took everything in me not to react to their conversation with my own two cents. really? you wish you had a daughter? do you know that there are thousands of people that are hoping, praying and doing everything they can just to have the opportunity to be a parent? families who spend their savings for a “chance” at having a family of their own?  women who have tried and suffered the loss of little one (be it in utero or still birth)? and so on.

you don’t want to be a teen parent? simple solution, don’t have sex. it’s the best birth control and it’s free. i know that may sound harsh but it’s honest. i remember being in high school and my parents & i having conversations about teen pregnancy and what it meant to raise a child. they gave me some good advice, which i intend to pass along to my son (when he’s old enough to worry about such things); if you’re ready to have sex, you need to be prepared to have a child of your own, because no birth control out there is 100% effective. there is a consequence to everything we do in life and we need to think about the outcome.  life is happening all around us whether we want it to or not!

alas, i kept my opinion to myself and leaned down to give my son a kiss on the forehead and a little squeeze. i never want him to think for a moment that i’m not happy with being a mother to a little boy. i can only hope that those two women we saw today have the sense to not talk such rubbish around their children when they’re old enough to understand what exactly it is their mothers are saying. urgh.