50 Shades Of Pink

The Baby Version

Whenever I go to buy clothes for Little Lioness, the baby girl aisles are filled with all manner of pink clothes.

At most, I can get peaches, lavenders, light greys, turquoises, whites. Maybe a pale yellow.

I totally get it. Pink is for girls and blue is for boys. That’s how you tell the gender difference between babies, right?

In a journalism class in university, I found out that in earlier times, pink was for baby boys and blue was considered a feminine color. While I’m unaware of how exactly the shift happened, it is surprising to know that the color associations are now completely opposite.

How does that even happen? How does one color go from being totally feminine to being so manly? And why are even shades of color assigned such attributes? I may be able to find a light blue shirt in the girls’ section but never a dark blue one. Or red, unless it’s (in) a dress, perhaps.

LL’s entire wardrobe is mostly different shades of pink and it’s a little too much. I have nothing against pink but it got to me. Why is everything LL owns pink? So I now try to get blues and yellows whenever I can and didn’t hesitate to grab a red shirt from the boys’ column for a bit of variety (shhh!).

It bothers me a little that we draw these lines for our kids, even when they are just babies, that we subconsciously assign gender to colors of all things. And I can’t help thinking how I personally love blue. Does that mean I have masculine tendencies or tastes?

Without getting into confusing territory and the nuances of a topic like gender, all I want is for my daughter/kid to be able to wear whatever color I/they want. Too much to ask?