The tension in the car on the way to my in-laws’ house was palpable. My husband, Mark, was clearly fuming about the new baby being a girl, blaming my “genetics” for our trio of daughters. His insistence that I was the reason, and his bizarre theories about his brothers’ wives’ siblings determining their sons, had me both exasperated and amused. I tried to explain the basic biology of X and Y chromosomes, but he just wasn’t having it. “I’ll ask my mom,” he’d finally huffed, confident that his mother, a biology degree holder, would back him up.
Brunch at his parents’ house was, as expected, awkward. Mark, barely waiting for coffee, blurted out, “Mom, isn’t it true that Sarah’s genetics are why we keep having girls? She has three sisters, after all.”
His mother, a no-nonsense woman, paused, then looked at Mark with a level gaze. “Mark,” she said, her voice calm but firm, “as I’ve told you before, it’s the man who determines the sex of the child. It’s your sperm that carries either an X or a Y chromosome. And actually, the more of one gender you have, the higher the statistical probability that your next child will be the same gender.”
Mark’s face, already a little flushed, turned a shade of deep crimson. He mumbled something about wanting a boy, and she replied, “If you keep trying, it might happen.” He then abruptly stood up, muttered he was going for a drive, and walked out, sending me that text about embarrassing him. I was utterly bewildered. How was telling him the truth, after he so confidently stated his misguided theories, embarrassing him?
The next day, the silence from Mark was deafening. No texts, no calls, just an absence that spoke volumes. His mother, however, called me. I expected another lecture, but her voice was surprisingly soft.
“Sarah,” she began, “I owe you an apology for Mark’s behavior. And… for a lot of things. He’s not just upset about having another girl. There’s something more to it, something he was never supposed to know, but frankly, after yesterday, I think you deserve to understand.”
My brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
She sighed, a long, weary sound. “When Mark was born, his father – my late husband – was incredibly disappointed he wasn’t a girl. He came from a family line that was obsessed with having at least one daughter to carry on a very specific, traditional family name as a middle name, a name that could only be passed through the female line. It was an almost religious conviction for them. His father truly believed that without a daughter, his legacy would be incomplete. He even suggested, at one point, that we keep trying until we had a girl, which put immense pressure on me after two boys. He made it clear that if he didn’t have a daughter with that name, he felt like a failure. It consumed him.”
She paused, taking a shaky breath. “Well, Mark wasn’t actually his biological son. Mark’s biological father was a brief affair I had years ago. My husband, Mark’s legal father, he never knew. Mark was conceived through a terrible time in our marriage, and I kept the truth secret my whole life. The two older boys, Mark’s half-brothers, are indeed his father’s biological sons, and that side of the family does have a strong tendency towards male offspring, hence why they had sons. But Mark… he doesn’t carry those genes. I just… I let him believe that it was his biological father’s line, his ‘Jensen blood,’ that was strong in producing sons.”
My head spun. “So… when you said the man determines the gender, and that it’s not 50/50, and that if he keeps trying it might happen… you weren’t just stating biological facts, were you?”
“No,” she admitted, her voice cracking. “I was subtly trying to tell him that his own genetic likelihood for having girls was statistically higher, and that he needed to understand that the reason he was having daughters was his unique biology, not yours, without revealing the truth about his paternity. He was so fixated on your sisters and his brothers’ wives’ genetics that he completely missed the implication for himself. He’s never faced the possibility that his own genes might lean towards producing daughters because he’s always believed he inherited a ‘strong male line’ from his presumed father.”
The call ended, leaving me in a stunned silence. Mark’s deep-seated disappointment wasn’t just about a preference for a son. It was about his entire identity, his perceived genetic legacy, being unknowingly challenged by the very biology he’d been so dismissive of. My “I told you so” and laughter had not just embarrassed him about basic biology; it had unknowingly poked at a hidden wound of paternity and an unacknowledged genetic truth that threatened to shatter his carefully constructed understanding of himself and his family line.