An old wives tale is an expression used for something that has been passed around from mouth to mouth and is usually founded on superstition and irrational belief. However, it can also be argued that an old wives tale, can also founded on good old fashioned common sense.
To dismiss advice of this type because there is often no scientific or medical evidence to support such a claim seems a little unfair, but given the technological advances in this modern world, we are not so dependent on the advice from our older and "wiser" citizens and so it is easier and safer to consult sources that has been proved to work and can be of benefit to us, rather than rely on the advice of a vague piece of folk lore that has been passed down in ignorance and prejudice over the generations.
But we cannot help be drawn in can we? I spent hours with a needle hanging on a piece of thread over my swollen belly, trying to ascertain the sex of my child. If it swung backwards and forwards it was deemed to be a boy and in a circle signified a girl. Did it work do I hear you ask? Strangely enough it did. It got it right every time. It MUST have been just coincidence. But was it?
Another one I came across is, if you have morning sickness early in pregnancy, you are expecting a girl. Now again, I found this was pertinent to my own experiences. I have had one girl and three boys and I only had morning sickness with my girl. Was that coincidence too? All I know it helped me predict the birth of my last three children and I even pre-decorated the nursery on the basis of this knowledge.
If you are carrying extra weight out front it is a boy and a girl if it seems to be all in your back. Again, I was very tiny when I had my girl and didn't really show my pregnancy until I was in my eighth month. Having my boys was a different thing altogether. I was huge with all three, and developed terrible stretch marks because I carried them so far forward.
I am not claiming that all old wives tales are true. After all, it beggars belief to accept that simply by the way you pick up a cup will dictate the gender of your child (by the handle a boy, by the body a girl) and Sleeping in a bed with your pillow to the north means that you are having a boy, but I find it hard to dismiss all tales.
Such as the Chinese gender calculator. You calculate your age at conception with the number of the month you conceived in. If the resulting number is odd, you are expecting a boy, if the number is even - it's a girl. Seems really farfetched doesn't it? I had four accurate results and thought this was a really good one. I tried it on a few of my friends too and it is eerily accurate.
Another one I found difficult to argue about was my cravings. With my first born girl I ate so many lemons I developed sores around my mouth, but with all three of my male pregnancies I craved donuts, chocolate and cottage cheese. So the old wives tale that you crave sour with a girl and sweet with a boy could ring true there also.
Old wives tales abound with pregnancy, and when you think back to how long these myths have been around you realise that many of them have developed through time tested observation before there was any such thing as ultrasound.
I find it particularly comforting to know that amidst all this technological knowhow and invasive medical procedure, that we still have a vestige of our past still providing useful (and fun) advice for the mother to be. Traditional and mythical this information may be, I cannot help but think that it got my own mother through a difficult time and also her mother and her mother before her (and so on)
As long as we take these old wives tales with a pinch of salt and look upon them as unproved theories which could be right, then I feel there is no harm in them whatsoever. Who knows, they may even be of use along the way. So although some would argue that they are not true because there is no proof that they work.
I would then reply by saying, "show me the proof that they don't".