孩子

I had a conversation tonight that just left me puzzled and smoldering with hidden anger over the injustice.  Now I don't plan to have kids so maybe I can't understand the kind of boy-fervor that seems to possess otherwise rational people at childbearing time.  Can someone please explain to me why having a son is better than having a daughter?

In a country where there is already a significantly greater number of boys than girls, it seems to me to be approaching foolishness to wish for a boy and be upset over having a girl.

This sweet, beautiful girl came over for dinner tonight and as we chatted she told me that she has 4 cousins who hate her.  I couldn't understand why they would feel that way so she explained.  The day she was born, her grandfather was so upset when he heard that she was a girl instead of a boy, that he had a heart attack and died.  Now her aunts feel as though it is her fault that she died, and have hated her since the day of her birth.  Naturally they passed those feelings on to her cousins.  Her own father even told her that if she had been a boy her grandfather would still be alive.

Has anyone besides me considered the fact that it's his own stinkin fault for wanting a boy so badly that he would get that upset about it?  I mean who has a heart attack about the birth of a new child?  I simply cannot grasp the reason behind the obsession.  I was just reading an article about the trafficking of stolen boys, especially in the South, where she is from.  People who have a daughter and the required sterilization are so desperate for a son that they buy them--from a kidnapper.

I just don't get it.