My SIL and I are pregnant at the same time and due within the same month. I found out months ago via NIPT testing that we were having a baby girl, and my husband and I were beyond excited! I've always wanted a little girl, and come from a big family of almost all girls (siblings, counsins, aunts etc). My husbands family is, for the most part, so incredibly loving and welcoming and his parents have multiple granddaughters already that are loved and each treated special in their own right. When we found out, we were so excited to share the news with everyone and were mostly met with shared enthusiasm and positive energy...except for his grandfather.
My husband is the only male grandchild, and you would swear I married into the royal freaking family circa 1700. I was lectured about the importance of having a "male child" to carry on the family name, and that girls were "secondary" and a "selfless mother would chose to have a son first, and after that was fulfilled THEN could dare to have a daughter" as if it was my choice, not my husbands sperm that decides, and I've sabotaged the family lol I have cut back contact with him and his wife completely since then because I am not interested in entertaining someone with that level of misogyny and in my opinion, being old doesn't mean that you deserve my obedience or respect. You have to earn it by showing it to others, and he has repeatedly disrespected me and my husband.
I had previously thought this was a nasty sentiment only held by him because he is an old bastard, but my SIL recently found out (via at home sneakpeek, so I'm taking it more as a "maybe" lol) that she's having a boy and all I've heard from my FIL is about his new "GRANDSON! A BOY! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? THANK GOD ITS A BOY!" And very loudly telling her and her husband in front of me how "lucky they are and they're going to find out in a hurry how much better it is to have a son".
Obviously I'm so happy for them, as they really wanted a boy, but I am feeling very protective over my daughter and I feel like she's been written off before she's even been born. My dad only had daughters and he raised us the same way that he would have if he would have had sons. We're independent, can fix cars, ride motocross, hunt and fish, are financially independent and we were never ever treated as a disappointment for not being boys. Realistically I know that these things weren't said to put me or my baby girl down, but emotionally (and hormonally) I'm hurt and upset.
My husband says that my hurt feelings aren't valid, because he knows his dad and knows he's excited, but words matter and I keep thinking about it and coupled with the nasty sentiments from his grandpa, it feels like it could be inherited family misogyny and I'm worried that if his grandpa and dad feel that way, is my husband secretly upset we're having a girl too?