The Last Name!

We live in an era where we hear a lot about gender equality, but sometimes I feel the more we stress on something the more it acts like instilling primitive thoughts in people's minds. 21st century and we still have to have campaigns to treat boy and girl child equally even then the discrimination begins even before a lady gets pregnant. There are people who still chant mantra to get a baby boy, people who get disappointed when the nurse comes out with the baby and says its a girl, people who feel a family is incomplete without a boy!
It is recently during a conversation that i realised that there is still this underlying wish for a baby boy in many people's minds. Though female foeticide has become less common, at least in modern families, I feel even the wish that the child should be a boy serves nothing less than the crime itself. When a child is born there's this constant tug of war for the rights over the baby, the silent gestures or subtle comments that the baby finally belongs to his/her dad's family. Be it the last name of the child, the address where they belong to in an ID proof, our society without a doubt goes by the dad's side. These were things that I never thought about, that never bothered me but then after the conversation I started thinking when are we going to break free of this stereotypic thoughts. What if a family consists of only girls, does their family name just die off once the girls get married? Does it mean that the parents who have worked equally hard to bring up their girl children, pampered them, educated them and married them off in style, have lesser rights over their grand child?
May be it is time we took a step and made a change. Remember as parents we are the most important people in our baby's life hence let's not let this thought get carried forward to our younger generation. Let us not force them to go with the society wave, let us not preach them lessons we don't believe in, just give them the freedom to explore and conclude, lets give them the freedom of choice!