Pink toys lead to pestering and unnecessary unpleasantness in toy shops - discuss

[hunkermunker]

They're colourist, imo - ignoring orange, yellow, red, green, teal, indigo, brown, etc, etc

The pic of the pink in ToysRUs is foul!

[CharCharGaboriaInExcelsisDeo]

boak at that picture of ToysRUs! God I hate pink so much, but you don't exactly get much choice. Most of the stuff we bought DD for Christmas was the boys' version as I couldn't stand any more pink in the house.

[edam]

eeek! that picture is horrible. Glad they picked up the point that 'pink is for girls' is a recent idea.

[zenandtheartofbaking]

Flipping heck - that Toys 'r' us aisle is a sight to behold.

[Hulababy]

I don't mind the colour pink, so the picture doesn't bother me any more than had it been all blue, green or orange. I don't have any particular problem with any colours TBH.

My DD has always been a girly girl and into pink and glitter and dolls and Barbie, etc. She still doesn't do pestering and asking in shops though.

[hunkermunker]

Yes, Edam - pink such a recent hijack for girls. DS2 is a one-boy attempt to send it back the other way though - he adores all things pink

[francagoestohollywood]

I've always been firstly amused, then really bored by the lack of choice on the high street (the inevitable pink/the evil camouflage).

[edam]

ds used to like pink but now he's in Year One he's given in to peer pressure. He grabbed a catalogue from a stand outside Boots before Christmas and was flicking through going 'no, too girlish' or 'YUCK, too pink'!

[edam]

Funny thing is two of his bestest friends at school are girls - although admittedly they aren't frilly girls who fit into marketing stereotypes.

[stealthsquiggle]

My DM was going on about the (I assume since she would never read the Daily Mail) Guardian/Observer take on this - which was apparently saying that girls are no longer 'allowed' to inherit their older brother's clothes and toys - DM was threatening to send pictures of DD looking angelic in DS's hand-me-downs.

There is a balance to be struck somewhere. My DD went to bed on Christmas Day clutching new doll in one hand and new tractor in the other. So far so good but she is only 2 .

[MilaMae]

I'm more concerned with the actual toys than the pinkness.

We went into Toysrus to get dd a present and came out with zilch, I've never seen such rubbish in all my life. Basically there was a choice between Polly Pocket (who spends her life shopping),Bratz(who dress like hookers and want to be stars)or Barbie(who aspires to being a princess or TV chef),baby doll stuff.

It was all extortionate and dreadful quality(most of the boxes contain a cheap,flimsy plastic toy padded out with cardboard). They have very little play value(except for the baby doll stuff)as are all pretty much identical but created so girls want to collect them,thus wasting vast amounts of money.

DD 4 has a pink bedroom(ok after twin boys I went a bit mad when pg with dd)we both now hate it. She almost never wears pink but has a variety of toys pink and mostly not pink. She loves Playmobil and now also Sylvanian families, she's also heavily into her baby dolls, books and roleplay stuff likes till etc. Her dolly pushchair is red which she chose and as a lot of our toys were the boys first they tend to be lime green.

I'm not anti pink as such just anti crap toys that are not worth a fraction of what they cost. DD had a box of wooden cakes in a fushia pink box for Xmas. The play value already has been fantastic and they are such good quality I'll probably be passing them on to my grandchildren. They were £8 half the cost of Barbie Princess Maraposa(sp?)

Today dd and my dtwins set up the Brio stuff to the Playmobil seaside stuff and camper van-they went travelling round the world!!!!!! The boys took the Sylvanian babies prisoner after stealing all the bread from the bakery and put them in the castle dungeo,dd rescued them with the aid of a knight. Yes these toys are expensive but my dc just have less.

Basically with good quality toys children can engage in quality play and become whatever they want to be. They can also engage in quality play with the simplest of things eg a cardboard box or a stick.

I worry that parents are now being fooled into buying utter crap for their girls and there dd are subsequently loosing their imagination and just aspiring to be a princess,star or live in a shopping mall

[Monkeytrousers]

"deliberately widening the gap between the sexes" How can liking pink do this? Does liking pink immedialty confir a lesser status on people? I don;t think so. Neither does it discourage young girls from thinking for themselves.

Author of a book called Toxic Childhood? She should go visit kids in underdeveloped countries and really see what a toxic childhood is. Silly silly woman.

[stealthsquiggle]

[MilaMae]

We did look but just seemed to be inflated pre-Xmas prices.,thanks for the tip though,if I ever manage to drag dp back will check it out.

We got some great prices at this baby site somebody on here recommended,can't rem the name but everything was cheaper and free postage. The Playmobil site sometimes does offers, the Supersets were 3 for 2 a while back

[Monkeytrousers]

She seems to have missed the point that it's pink becasue it sells. What possible reason could marketing people have with forcing pink on little girls - if they could do such a thing anyway? If blue sold more units, they isles would be decked blue, or purple or orange. The most popular colour would predominate. There's no sinister agenda here.

[Fennel]

It's just a reminder to avoid Toys'r'us and go to different shops. We manage to mostly avoid the pink plague despite having 3 girls. If you shop online or in traditional toyshops it's a lot easier to avoid pink plastic tat.

[mrsgboRingOutTheOld]

I'm not sure it's entirely true that there's no sinister agenda. It is about shifting units, but one of the most successful things about it must surely be to cut down on the amount of sharing between different sex siblings. You can buy pink everything for a girl, even a carseat and buggy FFS but there are very few people who would clothe a boy head to toe in pink, so, if they are suckered into the pink trap, would be forced to buy it all again if they had another child and it was a boy this time.

I agree there are good toys and there are crap toys, and in shops like Toys R Us the crap predominates, so that it is hard to find decent things if you shop there in the wrong mood.

I love pink and so does my DS. There is nothing wrong with the colour, but its exclusive use on girls' toys is, IMO, to encourage more gender segregation and therefore more spending from families who have one or more of each.

It is damaging. I cannot believe the number of times I've heard a mum of boy(s) say they don't know what to buy a preschool girl for her birthday because they dont' know anything about girls/girls' toys, as though they were a separate species.

[cyteen]

The preponderance of pink is depressing, I totally agree with whoever said that it's to cut down on the possibility of sharing between sibs and thus make the manufacturers more money.

Having ventured into Toys R Us for the first time recently, I'm not sure what gave me the greater headache - the blazing pink girls' aisle, or the McDonalds branded 'My First Drive Thru' I saw among the toddler toys.

[BroccoliSpears]

"One mother wrote: 'Every b**y thing you go to buy, you have to choose whether you want the girls' version - pink and yellow and gross - or the boys' version - blue and grey and gross.' "

Me! It was me! I said that! Ha ha, I've been quoted in the DM.

[cyteen]

Burn the witch!

[MilaMae]

We saw a set of play McDonalds food-who on earth would part with good money and buy that?

[whomovedmychocolate]

It's funny. When I was growing up my mum was a feminist and refused to let me wear dresses or have anything pink and was appalled when I asked for a doll when I was six for christmas.

Now she buys all manner of pink things for DD. Who frankly likes them but then she likes stuff generally. She came back from the shops the other day with a wooden spoon she'd fallen in love with and persuaded DH she needed!

Let's face it, kids like presents and really it's not about the colour but it's the shiney newness.

But I do think most of the toys in Toys r us et all are shockingly shite. Where are the nice wooden trains and bricks and stuff?

[GrimmaTheNome]

We don't go into ToysRUs much (DD doesn't like shopping) but when we have, she always avoids the 'pink aisle' unless we've been buying birthday presents for girly friends.

There is absolutely no rule against girls having any colour product. She chose the 'boys' pogo stick not the 'girls' (so did her 'girly' friend, who knows whats cooler!).

Don't go to TRU if you don't like it. ELC is pretty good for little 'uns, and online Tridias and Bright Minds (to name but two) do loads of good stuff.

[Monkeytrousers]

You cannot force a toddler to like anything. As parents we all know that. Our kids are not passive objects and liking pink and frilly things does not make them into passive objects.

Anything archityically feminine has negative connotations because second wave feminism decided femininity was weak and masculinity was the model we should aspire too. Roll on the 4th wave of feminism, I say.

[Monkeytrousers]

archetypically. As you were