Dr Johns believes that an optimistic frame of mind may lead to physical changes in the body that make it more likely that a woman will conceive a male child.

BBC: NEWS | Health | Optimists more likely to have boys

It takes a village to raise a child and there is no shortage of male and female parental figures to raise happy, healthy children.

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"I have a child and one day a male guest was full frontal, " said Dian Chen, an artist, who has lived in Manhattan Plaza since 1978.

WSJ: Hotel Offers Rooms With Risqu�� Views

One familiar explanation is that young women push hard at first to forge a career, but then bump up against a glass ceiling kept in place by a combination of antique male attitudes and the complication of organising child care.

ECONOMIST: Germany

The daughter no longer a child, Constance no longer the object of the male glance?

NEWYORKER: Shauntrelle