Im a professional actor, but probably did an amateur-level job at hiding my surprise.
Are you sure, doc? Perhaps you need to run the test again. Lots of false positives these days, I said, not knowing exactly what a false positive was or if it even applied to this situation.
Yeah, Jason, Im sure.
Its not that I wasnt happy. Its that I had never been so sure of anything as I was that I would be having a daughter.
Even before I met my wife, Jenny, and the idea of having children became real, I had always pictured myself having a girl. When people asked if I ever wanted to be a dad, Id enthusiastically respond in the affirmative, while picturing myself sipping fake tea with my pre-school aged daughter or joke-threatening her high-school boyfriend.
But, expectations aside, there was also something else and, okay, Ill admit it: I pee sitting down.
I always knew that doing so was atypical. To be clear, there are certain guidelines that I follow closely: I only sit down to pee at home or in nice hotel rooms, and never in public restrooms.
I dont necessarily think this is the exclusive result of living in a house with mostly girls. In fact, this is not a practice my dad adheres to, though he admits to being overly cleanly. The resulting combination of female influence and an impulse to sanitize is why, I believe, I continue to be a part of the male minority.
My peeing preference wasnt something I had to deal with in a dramatic way until DNA decided to flip my expectations. I knew I still had time, if only a few diaper-laden years, to continue to live comfortably without having to explain myself to my children. Even through potty training, my oldest son sat to pee because he knew thats what I did.
But then came the day of reckoning: That same son, age four, came home from pre-school and told me that other boys at school stood when they went, and he wanted to know why I didnt.
What pigs, I thought of my son trying to avoid stepping near the urine stains on the floor by the bowl. How do men live like this? Then I thought of myself living in a home with little-boy pee splattered on every surface of every bathroom. Gone were the days of my peeing with peace of mind. I began to wretch.
But I resisted detailing all of this to my son. In fact, not only havent I made a fuss the couple of times Ive caught my son standing up to pee, but Ive encouraged him to do so. I have declined the role of enforcer of the correct or even normal way. How I thought guys should pee was my hang-up. And demanding my kids do otherwise would just be selfish.
From the exact moment the doctor told me I would be the father of a daughter and not a son, Ive learned that my expectations as a parenttoilet-related or otherwisehardly ever play out. All the hand-wringing over what my sons would think of me as a sit-down-to-pee dad never materialized.
When my son came home from school that day he wasnt accusatory. He wasnt judgmental. He was curious. My oldest saw something different and accepted it as just that: different. Which way he eventually decides to pee is up to him, as is he how he feels about the way Ive decided.
When I cede control to my kids to make their own decision, my anxiety about a messy bathroom and, perhaps even more importantly, my anxiety about parenting the right way drops. Thats freeing for meand for my wife and kids. Even if I have to sidestep a few puddles on my way to put down the lid.