44. From a parents' daughter to a husband's wife

By sheer chance it occurred to me one day that half of my close friends are proud single-child parents of a girl. And, many of them tell me in no less terms that a daughter - in an amazing, unnameable way - has filled their households with unknown brightness and joy. Bereft of such joy, I envy my friends because I somehow feel that girls distinguish themselves in making a household lively, colorful, vibrant, and fragrant. Not without reason did English poet Robert Southey wrote that 'little girls are made of sugar and spice, and everything nice' (and denigrated little boys to be made of 'snips and snails, and puppy-dogs' tails).

Not sounding stereotypical, I consider left-brain orientation of girls' favoring them for their distinct nice touch - tender, delicate and receptive. Oblivious of any such perception, one friend tells me that a girl-child brings in a form of energy that softens the quest for unending doing-ness in our lives. Another friend is quick to add that a girl child, through her sensitive actions, brings out the most humane in her parents, which perhaps boys cannot. General consensus among the group is that a girl provides a sense of completeness to the family.  

I am curious, but at a loss on how to react. Is the picture as distinct as my friends have painted? Are boys cognitively differently wired than girls? Based on my own experience, I can safely say that boy's brains are wired more for logical thinking whereas girls' are better at intuitive thinking. I imagine this wiring sets them apart as individuals. No surprise, girls exude concern and warmth in each of their actions. Even in small actions like serving tea they ensure a soft and nurturing attitude towards their guests, something that runs deeper into their being.     

Without being prejudiced, my problem is that I cannot entertain such paeans far too long. That the girls are warm and delicate, and the boys are curt and impudent offers skewed understanding of the hidden gender dimension. The friend who is on cloud nine talking about his daughter's virtues slumps to ocean depths while enlisting his wife's vices. Why has the left-brained girl taken an extreme right turn after becoming your wife, I ask him. Like most men, my friend remains reticent to dwell any further.   

I am as curious and probing as anybody else could be, because such cases of role-dependent behavioral change among girls are not only far too many to be ignored but have yet to be taken upon for clinical examination to any degree. You will agree with me that a girl to a father is no mirror-image of that girl to a husband. I often wonder at the travesty of things which transforms a goddess of compassion into its mark opposite, who may eventually mother a girl to spread feminine virtues yet again. 

Such is the cycle of human nature, that the less said the better. And not allowing my curiosity to take the better of me, I must confess that I feel no less honored and privileged to have friends who are parents to nature's unfathomable enigma. Much before the recent phenomenon of 'beti bachao' took to the streets they had in the silence of their households taken a vow not to have another child after a baby doll had arrived in their family. For them, that has been their world.