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I really should learn to stop responding to individuals who think my personal decisions are any of their business. Since I have a son, and my husband and I have talked about having another, we have been asked how many we'll be having. I want four, and my husband thinks two is plenty. I have mentioned more than once that I'd like a daughter, so, naturally, people ask what I'd do if the next one or two babies happen to be boys. I think they were trying to lead me to a mushy, gushy admission that I would accept and love any baby I had. While that is definitely true, I answered quite candidly that I have no problem taking my husband to a fertility clinic to have his sperm separated in a centrifuge so that we could have a girl.

I have been amazed at the negative response my admission has provoked. I have been admonished for "playing god," being shallow or selfish, for not loving my son, and for furthering the moral disintegration of our society. These accusations have ranged from simply laughable, to downright offensive. Of course I love my son. I wouldn't trade him for all the daughters in the world. However, I have always pictured my family with both a boy and a girl in it. This seems more balanced to me.

The feminist in me understands that it's wrong to think that I need to have a daughter to pass on my feminine traditions, and my husband needs a son to pass on his masculine ones. This attitude has certainly furthered many troubling issues that feminists are dealing with. A mother should share her love of dance with both her sons and daughters, just as a father should share his automotive repair skills with both sexes. But we all know that there is more to having children than simply passing on traditions.

It can also mean passing on diseases. Some genetic disorders are specific to one gender or another. If both parents carry a gene that gives them a 50% chance of having a daughter with a rare defect, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to understand why these parents would elect to have only boys. I think this is both the responsible and logical conclusion.

It's also logical to expect that parents who desperately want a son, but already have 3 daughters, to gender select for a boy instead of trying their luck and possibly expanding their family beyond their financial abilities. It's much more responsible to have two children, one of whom you gender selected for, and both of whom you can support and give every advantage to, than to simply keep having children until

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