The Boy/Girl Odds Game
I’ve talked about this tender subject before: the desire to have a baby of one sex over the other. Many parents are reluctant to admit they’ve wanted a child to be a specific gender, especially if they have ended up being the opposite. But nearly every expectant parent is at least a little curious about what they have brewing within and I’m no different. Which is why I was tremendously interested in this website that I stumbled across in my internet travels the other day. It’s an article hosted by in-gender.com, a website that professes to give parents the straight truth on gender selection. The article is called “The Odds of Having Another Boy or Girl“.
What I found there was a somewhat scientific study of over 6,000 families and breaks the odds and statistics down in an easy to read and easy to understand format. How many families had a preference? How many families already had children? How many boys did they have? How many girls?
The Old Wives Tales have always said (and believe me, I’ve heard it a lot) that once you have a couple boys and no girls, you’re far more likely to have another boy than you are a girl. But the truth? According to this study, you’re only about 6% more likely to have another boy after already having three (like me). And that’s not a whole lot. It’s true, you are more likely to have a boy, but that goes for anyone, including families with only girls. But that’s because people are slightly more likely to have boys anyhow, since the natural percentage breakdown is 51% boys and 49% girls.
What it comes down to is that it all is really mostly 50/50. Regardless of what gender of child you’ve had previously, you’re just as likely to have a baby of the opposite gender as you are of the same gender. It’s something that logic dictates to us anyhow, but sometimes, it’s just nice to hear.
