What it means to be born a girl in India!

I remember before I had kids I would dream about one day having a daughter. When I found out my first child was a girl, I was overjoyed. I loved picking out all the pink baby clothes. When she was born I loved dressing her up and putting bows in her little baby hair. Now that she is older, I love our Mother daughter bond. We have amazing mother/daughter nights out where we shop together and get smoothies. And mother/daughter night in's where we wear face masks, watch girly movies, and paint our nails. I love taking her to dance class, swimming and soccer. I love sitting on the side lines watching her thrive. There is nothing about her that I would change. I love everything about her. She amazes me every day! I love having a daughter.

It's a girl! I recently watched the documentary called It's a girl. The documentary is based on how India and China treat and rank their daughters. To them it's almost a curse to have a daughter.

In India, a lot of people practice dowry. Even though it's illegal. Dowry is when a daughter gets married or has an arranged marriage and the Parents of the daughter have to give her future husband and husband's family dowry. Dowry is money, jewels, cars, livestock, land etc.... Basically they pay the husband and his family to take their daughter.

So if you live in India and practice dowry, let's say you end up having have 3 daughter's. When the daughter's grow up you have to pay 3 husbands and their families dowry.

But if you have son's, someone pays you dowry. So the family would much rather receive dowry than pay it out.

Another tradition in India is when the son grows up it is the son's responsibility to take care of the family, the parents, the family business. If all you end up having are daughters and they get married, no one will be left to take care of the parents. Which is another reason why a son is favored.

So in the Indian culture giving birth to a daughter isn't worth much. She can't take care of the family and she cost the family a lot to give her away.

Based on this there is a lot a pressure on the wife to birth a son. Like she has control over it. If she doesn't birth a son, her husband and her husband's family might abuse her, treat her bad, or divorce her. If a wife is divorce she is looked at with shame by her community.

So to archive a son, the wife and husband might go to desperate measures to ensure their first born is a son.

Sometimes, when the wife gets pregnant, her and her husband will illegally pay a doctor to do an ultra sound to find out the babies sex. If they find out it is a girl, they will abort the baby. When your pregnant it can take almost 15 to 20 weeks to determine the gender of your baby is by an ultra sound. So by then the baby is developing.

Some families can not afford to pay a doctor for the ultra sound. So they wait until the baby is born. If the wife gives birth to a girl some Indian families will kill the baby right after it is born or they will abandon it.

Even if the woman wants to keep her baby girl, sometimes she is forced or pressured by her husband and her husband's family, abort it, kill it after birth, or abandon it.

If the baby girl is allowed to live, sometimes she isn't well cared for. She is defiantly not treated equally as her brothers. If there is lack of food. Sometimes the daughter will go without. If she gets sick and the family can not afford medicine, the girl will go without. Whereas, the son is important to the family and his life depends on the family's future. He would not go without food, or medicine. About half of the females born die before they become adults. Even if the girls get food and medicine, it is clear to them they are not treated equal as the boys in the family. Sometimes the girls will get left out, abused, and mistreated as the boys get favored.

Now I know not all of Indian families believe in this, and some Indians are genuinely happy to have daughters.

But the ones who do believe in this. I can't help but wonder, if they realize what they are doing. You need females to increase your nation's population. If there are so many more males than females, how is your population as a country going to grow. If they keep up these action, all they are going to be left with is males.

Little girls are so special and having a daughter is a wonderful unexplainable thing. Little girls can grow up to be great woman. Great woman can do amazing things. And woman who can do amazing things, can help in change the world.

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