When Claire and I are out and about at the shops, it is common to have people at payment counters ask what sex our unborn child is going to be – it’s great that they are interested. We’re happy to tell whoever is asking that we don’t know the sex of our child and that it is going to be a surprise. As soon as we’ve spoken those words, for some reason the people we’re talking to feel compelled to tell us the sex of our unborn child.

In the last eight months, I can’t count the number of times people have come up to Claire and said that she is having a boy or girl. Every time someone offers free advice on the matter, we ask them why we’re having a boy or girl and you get back reasonably consistent reasons that have a certain amount of wiggle room in them. As an example, common reasons are that your wife’s stomach is sitting high or low or that it is shape x or y. The wiggle room I’m talking about is that, different people suggest that sitting low is a boy or girl and likewise on the shape.

The other thing that I’ve noticed is that it tends to be older people that feel like guessing/telling us what sex our child is going to be. I got thinking about that the other day and it occurred to me that they might feel compelled to tell you the sex because in their day, being able to definitively know the sex of your child pre-birth wasn’t an option so it was normal to guess. I’m sure that the old wives tales were born by expecting parents asking their local doctors what sex their child was going to be (when he/she had no idea in the world) but felt obligated to come up with an answer and subsequently a reason.

What crazy theories have you heard about determining the sex of an unborn child without any scientific intervention?