By Vishnu Makhijani, IANS,
Los Angeles : Wherever you look in Los Angeles, termed the surf city of the world, you’ll find more girls than boys. It’s a trend that continues up the line.
Not only this. If you count the number of men and women driving on the roads, the numbers even out.
This should not be surprising, given that the census for 2000 counted 281.4 million people in the US – 143.4 million of them female and 138.1 million male.
Females thus make up 50.9 percent of the population, albeit slightly down from 51.3 percent in 1990. But, given the current trends, they could well overtake that percentage when the numbers from the 2010 census come in.
Quite obviously, what this means is that the girl child is well cared for in this country – unlike in many other countries and particularly in some developing nations.
“Over here gender is not an issue. We consider every child a blessing,” said Mardean Pieczynski, a mother of two who balances parenthood with a senior position in an aerospace company.
“Just look around,” she said while standing in the lobby of a swanky beach resort. “There’s…let’s see…three couples with daughters. One has three, the others have two girls each. Now let’s see…ah, there’s a couple with a son and a daughter and there’s another couple with a daughter,” Pieczynski’s straw poll concluded.
“More and more Americans seem to be having daughters. Isn’t that wonderful?” she asked.
“We’ve always given our girls our total attention and that includes taking them along on all our vacations and spending our anniversaries with them,” said Pieczynski, who is currently busy planning her younger daughter’s 16th birthday.
“In America, a child’s 16th birthday is akin to independence day because that is the day he or she can acquire a driving licence,” she said.
And, what are her options for the big day? A helicopter ride over Los Angeles that would cost $1,000 an hour or hiring a stretch limousine that would cost $1,000 a day – apart from the expense on food and other items – are just two.
“I’ve got two weeks to decide. All that I know is that I want it to be a memorable day for my daughter so that she does the same for her daughter when she turns 16,” Pieczynski said.