I have this love/hate thing going with the colour pink. As in, I hate it and my daughter loves it.
From the moment I first discovered that my child was going to be a girl, I had this crazy notion that I was going to protect her from pink. She wasn’t going to be limited. She wasn’t going to be labelled. I wasn’t going to dress my baby by colour code, simply for the comfort and convenience of strangers.
I lied. I told everyone that I didn’t know what the gender was. The baby was too squirmy, it wouldn’t sit still for the camera. I was growing a a healthy, squirmy little bean. As the baby shower approached I stuck to my story. No way I was going to be saddled with thirty little pink outfits, hairbows, blankets, YUCK.
From the first day she was born I dressed her in greens and blues, and yes sometimes even pink. I dressed her in outfits with dinosaurs, pirates and dragons printed on them just as often as I put her into something covered in flowers. I have made sure that she has plenty of cars, robots and aliens to play with alongside her blocks, dolls and playfood. Yes our dress up chest has pink tutus and crowns in it, but it also has capes, pirate hats, animal ears and eye patches.
Yet despite all of this my daughter loves fairies and princesses and every girly stereotype you can imagine. And pink, she loves pink. I want to be grumpy about her love of pink, protect her from society forcing it on her… but she has been vocal about her preferences since before she was even two. I remember one time when she was about a year and a half old we were out shopping for clothes, and despite my best attempts at interesting her in a nice pair of blue and brown dragon covered pajamas, she was stretching out of the cart, reaching towards and asking for every pink flowery thing on the rack. Sometimes I wonder if she does it just to drive me nuts. Like I’ve got a little pink rebel on my hands here.
She’s in school now, so she comes home with dumb ideas, like girls can’t be pirates, or that only boys are strong; ideas which I vehemently protest. To be fair I should point out, she does also love race cars, trains, Star Wars, and dinosaurs. She was quite excited about the wooden rocket ship kit she got for Christmas, she just painted it pink.
I really try and hide the fact that I cringe every time she gets on the pretty pink flower thing. I just want her to have choices. She can like pink if she wants, I just don’t want her to think she has to because that’s what girls are “supposed to” like.
So here I am, a Kinder Ambassador, and they announce their new Pink For Girls Kinder Surprise Eggs. And I have to say my honest reaction was disappointment, maybe even a tiny bit of anger. Why the heck are they making pink Kinder eggs?! Why take a perfectly awesome gender neutral toy and turn it into boy and girl versions? ( Okay, I do have to admit, I sort of like the idea of Hot Wheels teaming up with Kinder, I just wish they wouldn’t market it as “for boys”. )
But my daughter… well she got one look at that box of pink eggs and she went nuts, simply begging to open one, and when she found a nice pink bracelet inside she was one happy kid. Of course we opened a couple of the Hotwheels eggs as well, and she was also pretty excited with her new race cars. So maybe Kinder is on to something. And even a grumpy pink-hater like myself has to admit that any Barbie or Hot Wheels loving child is probably going to be excited with these new limited edition Kinder eggs.
What do you think? Is it true, will girls be girls? Are pink, flowers and princess gowns an inevitable part of raising a daughter?
Oh and for the record, Girl #2 says her favourite colour is orange and whenever she sees anything frilly or pink she points it out as something that should be for her big sister. So maybe there’s some hope after all.
Disclosure: I’m part of the Kinder® Mom program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own. Image Credit: Sattva
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