Why do families treat boys and girls different?

This morning I was on a trip to Alor Star with a lady friend when she told me that children, even at a very young age, could feel envious of their siblings who are better treated than them.

She told me she remembered vividly one occasion at the dinner table, when she reached out fro a drumstick, she was told that the two drumsticks were for her two brothers. At that time, although not a sound came from her lips, her heart felt the hurt of being deprived of something which she ought to have equal chance to enjoy. Was she not a child of her mother and father? Was she not as beloved as the boys? Was not her welfare just as important to them? However, she was not to question why. She was expected to sit quietly, eat, and not to cry. Why must the girls be treated different from the boys? Why were the boys given preferential treatment?

The question here is how can parents ever behave thus towards their own flesh and blood. Yet, eventually, in some families, it is the girls who look after the parents as they grow older. Sometimes, there is wrong thinking drilled into the minds by our early ancestors, thinking that could be selfish. When it comes to the Chinese, it must be a male who leads the mourners at the funeral of the parents. So, those families without males pray hard to get boys, so that such a predicament would not befall them.

That is the reason some families have so many children, delivering babies, each time hoping the latest baby would be a male. In the end, the may still end with a dozen girls. As for me, for the first ten years, it was a long honeymoon without any need for birth control and then when my first child came, one of the relatives asked, "What if it is a girl?"
"So what? Is not my wife a girl? Is she not as lovable and capable as any of the boys in her family?" I asked her.
"Every family must have a boy, mah. If not, how is the 'Ong' surname going to be continued?" she persisted.
"What? Do you know how many 'Ongs' there are in this world?" And with that I silenced her.

Of course, the problem did not arise as my children are all boys. If they were girls, i would have loved them just as much for they are my children, and put into my care by God.

Still, when I think about it, how can humans have such warped thoughts, not being able to differentiate between right and wrong. No wonder our world is full of problems created by humans ourselves. Even today, the minds of humans are still clouded when it comes to right and wrong in all spheres of life.