The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-05-08
Dorothy DIG Says
Which Do You Prefcr-Boy or Girl?
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer

Here is a strange thing: When the
stork begins to hover over a house
hold, in nine cases out of ten, the
beneficent bird is besought to bring
to it a boy baby.
And when the man child is born
great is the rejoicing and fervent the
congratulations rendered the happy
parents while, when the doctor says,
ITS girl" all the welcome that the
little stranger receives is a perfume
tory oh-well-let's y-to-be-thankful-
for what-we- have-got sort of greeting
into this vale of tears.
That is why blue is the color for
girl baby and riotouS pink the color
for a boy.
Strangely enough, however, when
people decide to adopt a child and
are free to pick out the kind they
prefer, instead of taking a chance on
the within of the stork in the matter of
sex, they almost always choose girl
baby. The managers of orphan asy-
lums and children's homes say that
they are simply swamped with appli-
cations for golden haired little girls,
but that nobody wants a little boy,
no matter how fair his hair or how
blue his eyes. Whatever they may be
in the family circle, boy babies are
drug in the market in public institu-
tons.
Of course, several explanations may
be offered for this contradictory va
gary of the human fancy. One is
that girls are preferred risk in
child rearing. They are more liable
to turn out right than boys are. Nat
ural vanity makes us believe that our
own son would be bound to be par
agon of virtue. He couldn't help be-
ing remarkable with such parents,
but we are filled with dark misgiv--
ings about assuming responsibility for
a boy of whose heredity we know lit.
tie or nothing.
Another reason why people prefer
to adopt girl babies is because girls
are quieter than boys. Nothing but
the grace of God gives us the strength
noise and racket of our own small
boy, and there are few souls intrepid
enough to voluntarily bring pande-
monium on their peaceful households
by injecting into them a boy at the
drum and whistle and cat-call stage
of evolution.
But the chief reason that girl ba-
bies are adopted oftener than boy ba-
bies is because women do the adopt
ing. 1t is the wife, and not the hus-
band, whose empty arms cry out for
something little and warm and soft
to fill them, and what the childless
woman wants is something she can
tie ribbons on, and curl, and perfume,
and fuss over, and fix up.
Every woman's fingers just natural
-
to embroider, and make lacey do-dabS
for human doll that she can amuse
herSeIt dressing and undressing. She
can't do this with boy, there. she
chooses a little fairy for her home.
So the girl baby is Queen of the
Orphanage Nursery, even if she does
nave to take a back seat in private
life.
If parents were actuated by an
altruistic desire for the welfare of
their offspring, it is easy to see why
they should want all of their children
to be boys instead of girls, for life is
certainly easier on men than it is on
women. There is nothing that a wom-
an has to do between the cradle and
the grave that it isn't harder for her
to do, just simply because she is a
woman. Her sex is a handicap to her
at every step, and unlucky, indeed, are
the poor creatures who have woman
hood wished upon them.
OF course, it can't be helped. Wom-
en- there are, and women there are
bound to be, whether we lk' it or NOT,
and SO it is cheering for those of us
who belong 10 the feminine persuasion
to learn that the girl baby has come
into her own.
AS matter of fact, there has never
been any reason who boys should have
been preferred to girls for, as a rule,
daughters are far more devoted TO
their parents, far more loyal, and more
CT a comfort than boys arc. 1t is the
daughters who remember the old folks
at home long after the sons have for
gotten them.
1t is a common and 4 shameful
thing to meet a man who has got out
into the world to make his fortune.
and who has been SO successful that
he has let his own interest crowd out
of his mind every thought of his father
and mother. Such a man will often
tell you that he has not been back
home in twenty or thirty years. He
does not even write to his mother ex-
cepu ENTHUSIASTICALLY, and then it is
u cold, colorless, dictated missive that
tells her nothing except that he is still
alive.
A daughter never goes SO far but
what somehow she can scrape up
the money to go lack home now and
then. She is never so successful that
she does not find time to write to those
she has left behind the story of her
struggles and triumphs, the warm hu-
man things that the old parents, who
live only in their children, yearn to
know. A man takes his whole heart
with him when he leaves home. A
woman leaves part of hers behind her.
One of the theories of why boy
babies were more desirable than girl
babies was that sons could take care
of the parents in time of need, while
girls couldn't. If that were ever true
in the past, it is not so in the present.
When there are sons and daughters in
q family where there are dependent
parents, you will find the daughters
taking care of the old people far often
or than the sons.
1t is the girls in poor families who
bring home their pay envelopes and
turn them over to their mother. Never
the sons. 1t is the girls who spend
their earnings making a comfortable
home for the family while the boys
spend theirs on having a good time.
And when the home is broken up, it
Mary that mother goes to live with
instead of John. Indeed, so almost
invaria bly, is this the case that when
you find man supporting old people
you will nearly always find that they
are his wife's father and mother in
stead of his own.
A man will let a mean and jealous
and high tempered wife separate him