# The gender of the first 2 kids in your family **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 15, 2020, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686 "2020-06-15T08:48:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686/21 "2020-06-15T17:04:18Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Based on a 1 in 32 outcome? It makes you wonder if people are bad at statistics. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686/22 "2020-06-15T17:05:53Z")
3 older sisters, them me - a “rhythm” accident! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686/23 "2020-06-15T17:10:05Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > 3 older sisters, them me - a “rhythm” accident! 😃 _All_ your older sisters were born before you? ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686/24 "2020-06-15T17:35:23Z")
My mother gave birth to a son (me) then another son, my brother, sired by two different men. My father sired a son (me) then a daughter, my sister, borne by two different women. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686/25 "2020-06-15T17:36:38Z")
Among my siblings: son, son, son, son, daughter, son My brother’s kids: son, son, son, son (the last 3 they were trying for a girl) son, son daughter ---
**Author:** ![MoonMoon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonmoon/32/2959_2.png) [@MoonMoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MoonMoon)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686/26 "2020-06-15T18:10:24Z")
I have one child, so I voted based on my own sibling situation. As an aside, my mother has seven siblings, and each of them (save one, who has no children) has two children. Interestingly enough, each of those are matched sets, and there are 3 sets of each. In order: 2 boys 2 boys 2 girls 2 girls 2 girls 2 boys ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686/27 "2020-06-15T18:14:22Z")
2 daughters for my kids 2 sons for my parents 1 son 1 daughter for my oldest daughter, and one son so far for my youngest. 2 sons, 1 daughter for my father’s family 4 daughters for my mothers. Then my grandfather gave up trying to get a son. I don’t know any daughter/son families, so that means my anecdote cancels **Velocity** ’s. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686/28 "2020-06-15T18:40:05Z")
I’ve been interested in this question but for another reason. Many people believe that some people - and in particular some women - are predisposed to give birth to more children of one particular gender. (Theories I can recall - from those of a scientific bent - have mostly involved the acid level in the vagina, which is apparently more hospitable to one or another type of gene.) But it’s very difficult to assess this type of claim, since even by pure chance there will be some people who will have overwhelming majorities of children of one gender. For example, if you look at families with 4 children, one of every 8 will have all 4 of the same gender just by pure chance. Some it will seem as if these people are predisposed to one gender when really it’s just random chance. So I think the simplest way to assess the validity of the notion is by looking at the first two children of many families, and comparing the number which have both of the same gender vs those with one of each gender. If some people are predisposed to have a particular gender, then the percentage of those with the same gender would be over 50%. If it’s purely random, then it should be a 50%/50% blend. From looking at as many people as I could find, I didn’t find any indication that same-genders were above 50%. But perhaps I didn’t look at enough couples. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2020, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686/29 "2020-06-16T17:38:33Z")
Seems an appropriate thread for this anecdote: I have 2 sons (and we don’t plan to have more children). My father had only 2 sons. His father had only 2 sons. And his father also had only 2 sons (twins in this case). Combined with longish generation gaps, this has led to no females in this branch of the family tree since the mid-1800s. But among the billions of families on earth, even this is not so remarkable. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2020, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686/30 "2020-06-16T19:06:56Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > …And prior to expending any effort on research we’d need to show that there is an observation that _requires_ an explanation. Does anyone have a cite that the number of families with all-male or all-female offspring is overrepresented, i.e. significantly greater than expected by chance? Reflecting on this, it’s a non-trivial question what distribution we should expect under the null hypothesis that births are independent with ~50% probability. Under this model, nothing you can do will change the probability of the sex of your next child. But you can, of course, control the size of your family. And some parents appear to be motivated to keep having kids until they get one of the particular sex they want, or until they get one of each. So even under the null hypothesis we might expect large families with initial runs of one sex to be overrepresented, i.e. the following distributions: BBB BBBB BBBBB BBBBBB (kept trying for a girl, eventually gave up) BBG BBBG BBBBG BBBBBG (kept trying for a girl until they succeeded) and the converse with G/B flipped ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2020, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686/31 "2020-06-16T19:11:34Z")
I wasn’t sure if I should go my family counting me as a child (i’m second of 4 girls) or to count my family as in my children (BBGB). ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686/32 "2020-06-17T03:14:26Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Because I am a first child, and an absolute ton of my friends are also first children. About 80% or so, rough guess. Generally I don’t find this out until we’ve already become friends. But people with similar life experiences so seem to gravitate to each other. At least 70% of my coworkers are oldest children. And because the majority are also women, they’re mostly oldest daughters. I know way more people who are the older sister of a younger brother next than any other combination. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gender-of-the-first-2-kids-in-your-family/855686.md?page=1)