I am lucky I gave birth to a boy

Perzen Patel
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read

While I am born and brought up in India, I lived out my teenage and early adult years in NZ. Those 9 years in a country where no one will bat an eyelid if you enter a McDonalds in your pajamas or your bikini spoilt me.

Spoilt me how? Well, when I moved back to India I frequently committed outrageous acts like wearing a skirt in my bus commute to work and wearing a tank top to the gym which showed a centimeter of my bra strap. Now that I am a mom, these brazen acts have also extended to me breastfeeding my child in a cab (my last Uber driver told me I shouldn’t book an Uber Pool if I had an infant after he couldn’t stop looking at my covered breast that was feeding my baby). #YesAllWomen in India go through these experiences on a regular basis and so I’ve become conditioned to turn a blind eye to these stares.

In my past 90 odd days as a mom I have also learnt to turn a deaf ear to most comments made about my child or my child rearing capabilities. But this changed on New Year’s Day when a relative told me that I was lucky I had a boy.

When I asked him why, he said that it was because I didn’t have to worry about having uncomfortable talks about sex and there was no risk of him being sexually molested like the #BangaloreMolestation incident that happened a few months ago. Among other privileges were that he would never leave me to start a new family and that there would never be any controversy about his kids being Parsi regardless of him marrying into the faith or not.

Invisible steam started puffing out of my ears as I heard him say this.

Yes, I am lucky I gave birth to a boy. Not because I can skip the sex talk. But rather, because I can give him a sex talk that will matter.

I hope to teach him that “No” never means “Yes” and neither does it mean “Maybe”.

Yes, I am lucky I gave birth to a boy. Not because I don’t have to worry about him. But rather, because I have the opportunity to raise a man who will never turn his back on those who need his help whether that person is a man or a woman.

Yes, I am lucky I have a boy. Not because he will never leave me but because I will have the opportunity to become a parent to a lovely girl (or boy) once more whenever he chooses to marry and revel in the fact that my son is cherished by so many.

And finally, Yes, I am lucky I have a boy. Not because he has the absolutely unfair advantage of always being a Parsi but because I’ve done Parsi girls across the world a favour by giving them one more handsome (and hopefully eligible) Parsi boy to choose from!

P for Parenting

Thoughts, stories and rants on raising better parents and parenting better kids

Perzen Patel

Written by

Mother to two sons and a Parsi food blog, Bawi Bride. Food, travel & writing — things that make me happy. I also write about being a mom on P for Parenting.

P for Parenting

Thoughts, stories and rants on raising better parents and parenting better kids

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