Too many girls?

[Terri]

Just added a line to my new family tree - something I didn't notice first time around when I was collecting the family bit by bit .............

124 children spread over 23 families, all from the same gggrandparents and only 39 are boys, while 85 are girls!!! :d

[Olde Crone]

I don't remember what the scientific explanation is but in nature, males are expendable, females are not, as far as breeding is concerned.

More males than females are born, but more females survive to adulthood.

I have a similar scenario where there are far more great great granddaughters than there are males. Infuriating from a genealogical point of view as the line has now died out for males and the females have disappeared into marriage.

OC

[Janet]

Very, very interesting.

[Kit]

More males than females are born, but more females survive to adulthood.

I had a friend who was a nurse and she worked with premmies for a long time. She said boys were lazier than girls and would often forget to breathe. They would have to walk around and tickle the feet or do something to get them to react and start breathing again.

[Terri]

As it's the father who decide the sex of each child, can't even blame a genetic tendency towards producing girls ............... it's very weird.

So many of these families have a one and only boy as the the last child born after half a dozen or more girls lol

[Olde Crone]

Terri

There is a complicated explanation as to why more girls are conceived in some families and it has something to do with the father's contribution, lol. The Y chromosome is basically a broken X chromosome and that makes it more vulnerable to fail conception.

There was a tragic thread on another forum about a family who had produced ten daughters. The eleventh child was a boy, born three weeks after his father died and he was put out for adoption. This was pre war and we all had no doubt that the adoption was at least coerced, if not forced, by "the authorities". So very sad.

OC

[HarrysMum]

When I was chaplaining in the hospital, we would often heave a sigh of relief if a very premmie baby was a girl as she ad more chance of surviving.

Very often when twins (one of each) are born, you'll see the girl grow faster. Boys don't tend to catch up until puberty. Even is primary school, you see that quite often, although boys seem to be getting taller more quickly now for some reason.

I have quite a few families in my tree with more girls, or at least more girls surviving infancy.

[ElizabethHerts]

My daughter has just told me that in the new Reception class at my grandson's school there will be 25 girls and just 5 boys in September! There are 15 of each in my grandson's year.

[kiterunner]

It was much like that in my son's nursery class, and it seemed to me that it meant that the little boys' normal boisterous behaviour was frowned upon much more than it would have been if the numbers were more equal.

[Terri]

My daughter has just told me that in the new Reception class at my grandson's school there will be 25 girls and just 5 boys in September! There are 15 of each in my grandson's year.


Oooh! Women are taking over the world ........! :d

[Terri]

When I was chaplaining in the hospital, we would often heave a sigh of relief if a very premmie baby was a girl as she ad more chance of surviving.

Very often when twins (one of each) are born, you'll see the girl grow faster. Boys don't tend to catch up until puberty. Even is primary school, you see that quite often, although boys seem to be getting taller more quickly now for some reason.

I have quite a few families in my tree with more girls, or at least more girls surviving infancy.

Interesting! My boy twin was smaller at birth than his twin sister. I can't remember at what point he caught up with her but he certainly out-sizes her now, by about 6" and 3 stone.

[Kit]

My daughter has just told me that in the new Reception class at my grandson's school there will be 25 girls and just 5 boys in September! There are 15 of each in my grandson's year.

In my youngest's class there are now 4 girls (3 lat year) and about 15-18 boys (I forget exactly). We thought the kindergarten teacher was a saint she was always smiling and never raised her voice.