And my boss’s boss, the VP of engineering, said yes too.

And then I went home for the weekend for the ultimate boss approval.

My wife Chris said sure… and then she reminded me that the conference was during our 15th anniversary.  Doh!

Actually to be more specific, the wife of a co-worker sat in my car. (My own wife still has yet to sit inside it, let alone drive it.)

The U.S. Census Bureau has a special report comparing the ratio of boys to girls, for adopted, biological and stepchildren.

The ratio of girls to boys for biological children is 100 to 105. While I was aware for the slight preference for boys, I’m surprised the ratio is not more even because I never thought biological parents had much control over the situation. But, here is the stunner: The ratio of girls to boys for adopted children is 100 to 89. It is even starker a ratio if you consider only International adoptions (where there no re-adoption of biological step-children): the ratio is 100 girls for every 56 boys.

It is not because of the availability of foreign girls: it turns out that most adoptive parents, unlike prospective biological parents, want girls. And adoptive parents have the power to choose gender. An article in Slate by a fellow adoptive parent tries to analyze the bias.

He conjectures that husbands want to procreate and wives want to nuture, and with the procreation “bath water” tossed out, it is the nuturing wives who take the lead in the adoption process and they are the ones who want girls.

While it is true, at least from the adoptive parents I personally know, that is almost always is the wife who takes the lead, I think it is a little bit of a stretch to assume that 1) Women think girls are more nuture-able, and 2) Husbands have no say in this step of the adoption process.

Remember that study that indicated that slight parental desire for boys (regardless of whether they were adopted)? I cannot see how an adoptive mother would feel that much different that biological mother when it comes to gender and nuturing. I mean, that can’t explain why the adoptive/biological ratios are that out of whack.

And for the record, my wife did consult me all three times when selecting a preferred gender. (Personally I prefered a girls because I figured I, as a pretty geeky dad, would be better at teaching piano than football.)

Here is my theory. One of the major differences between adoption and biological parenthood (other than stretch marks) is that the child exists prior to being part of the family. Yeah, that is obvious, but follow me here.

Most adoptive parents believe this is entirely the wrong way to look at it, but at least some [pre-]adoptive parents believe, perhaps only subconsciously, they are rescuing a child from a life more difficult that it should be. Perhaps girls are more rescue-able. Little damsels in distress as it were. All parents want to nuture, but only adoptive parents feel they might rescue. This is especially true for internation adoptions. This might explain the gender imbalance.

Another theory? A perception that more girls are available. I, for one, did not know that is was not true for Cambodia. Perhaps there is a simple desire, after years of trying biologically, to go for the presumed expediency. The wait for girls is assumed to be shorter.

I don’t recall my agency allowing me to select first available: I’ll take three non-smoking girls, please.

• There will be peace in the Middle East
• There will be democracy in Iraq and Afganistan
• Kelly Jo will be a future Bacherlorette

Kelly Jo was robbed.

And, no, I am not proud that I got sucked up into this bromidic series.

It is not just divorce statistics. Divorced mothers with girls are substantially less likely to re-marry than if they had boys. And, as before, that marriage is less likely to last.

Even unmarried couples are less likely to marry if they find out that their fetus is female. So why do couples seem to prefer boys? The authors of the study don’t say–they are economists, not psychologists. I can’t relate myself, because I really dig being a father to girls.

Yesterday, one of my wife’s friends came over and brought her five-year-old boy over to play with our girls. He ran all over the place constantly screaming and the top of his lungs while chasing my middle daughter and hitting her with a foam bat. My other two girls played pretty quietly by themselves. The daughter being chased was giggling so it wasn’t too violent, but the boy’s mother did almost nothing to rein him in because he was just being a normal kindergarten boy. He was certainly more boisterous than I’ve ever seen my girls. And I don’t have angels.

Years ago, my wife came to the same conclusion that boys are more highly-strung after an afternoon watching the neighbor’s toddler boy.

So why do couples prefer boys? The conclusion I come to is that they obviously must crave the turmoil. :-)

He said educated women work and study while less educated women spend time procreating. He wants smart women to work less while paying dumb women not to have kids. He insists he is not like Hitler because the dictator exterminated groups and that those groups included intelligent people. I wonder what Nyborg would have thought of Hitler had he only exterminated dumb people.

In a tangentially related topic, former Jew “Dr.” Laura Schlessinger’s new book The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, which hits the shelves in January, encourages women to have sex with their spouses even if they don’t feel like it because husbands “go to work and earn money” and visit relatives they don’t like so “why can’t their wives put out on demand?”

However if wives aren’t motivated to have sex, they can still move to Denmark and use the excuse: “I know you visited my relatives and all, but some Professor paid me money not to have sex with with you.”

She can take the “sex” ones too in a few years. I’ll step up to the plate for the “drugs” one.

I wonder the researcher would say about female scientists who, generally, have even lower testosterone levels.

I’m sure my spouse would agree that I was not the smartest guy around, but I doubt she would blame it on the fact that I married her.