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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be fed up with the amount of pink!

80 replies

Sunshine78 · 12/03/2007 12:55

I am a mum to a dd and a ds. I just wanted to know why some people now who have dd have to have everything in bright pink as if to say look at me I've got a girl. Am I the only one who feels the pink explotion in shops is a bit sexist towards boys? Anything you can buy also comes in pink. There also seems to be more girls clothes/toys in the shops than boys. Sorry if this offends some but I would like to know why people want everything to be pink?

OP posts:
pinkchampagne · 12/03/2007 20:40

Well I have two boys, who never wore anything pink, and they were both confused for girls when they were babies! Infact DS2 (in a blue shorts set at the time) was called princess by someone, when we were flying back from the States!!

gingernut · 12/03/2007 20:47

Oh yes, my ds2 has been mistaken for a girl too. He was wearing red which some people seem to think is a feminine colour .

HaHaBizarre · 12/03/2007 20:49

OP - You won't be too thrilled to learn that there is a pink boxed easter egg out this year then. I think it is a Smarties egg

kickassangel · 12/03/2007 22:57

i don't mind other people buying pink if they want it, but there does seem to be quite a lot of pressure that they HAVE to have pink - i tried buyin baby clothes in Next at 39+5 weeks. I had some contractions going & VERY bad depression, so when faced witheither blue or pink, and no other clothes at all, i didn't react too well.
i think the member of staff got the idea that i'd like some choice - i did ask her to predict the future & tell me what colour the bump would turn into!

kks · 12/03/2007 23:02

My baby was in a pink outfit and an old lady said what a lovely boy!

hester · 12/03/2007 23:10

that happens to me all the time, kks. My dd is a bit androgynous, I guess - like a wild-haired little troll doll (remember them?). She can be decked in pink from head to toe and people still call her a boy.

I like pink, but you can definitely have too much of a good thing and I think pink's growing monopoly status needs challenging before there's no choice left.

Twinklemegan · 12/03/2007 23:10

I'm really grateful I've got a boy. We got so many blue clothes when he was born that I'm fed up with them, but if I'd had a similar quantity of pink it would have done my head in I think.

LOL kks!

kks · 12/03/2007 23:12

Its always old ladies, bless em!

Catbabymummy · 13/03/2007 06:50

What's wrong with pink? If I have a boy I'll dress it in ALL pink

CristinaTheAstonishing · 13/03/2007 07:36

I think it depends how much effort you want to put into buying clothes. For DS I could find red, yellow, orange, green (Gymboree used to be very good for colourful stuff). I had the time.

For DD I rely mostly on what we receive from others and when I need to get her something myself I tend to just get what I find quickly. If it's a 3-pack of T-shirts one is bound to be pink. Anyway, there's enough beige and brown in the world. I don't wear them myself, why would I dress DD in them?

sockmonkey · 13/03/2007 07:48

It's not so much the pink that bothers me. It's the fact that shops sell 3 times as many clothes for girls as they do for boys. Honestly sometimes I really stuggle to find something nice for my DSs. It seems to be the same in every shop, three racks of pink to every one rack of blue.

LunarSea · 13/03/2007 08:24

Is this a particularly British thing? One of my favourite sites for kids clothes is the Germans Jako-o , and there's noticably a lot more variety colour wise - for both boys and girls - than there seems to be in the UK.

margoandjerry · 13/03/2007 09:22

I think it is a UK thing - never noticed this when I lived in Switzerland. And it's a reasonably recent thing too. When I was looking through photos of me and my sisters as babies I noticed that we didn't have a single pink item. Shame about the mustard yellow combo my mum put me in though!

ipanemagirl · 13/03/2007 09:29

my sister is a total pink maniac
I was about to wrap her dd's present in generic blue happy birthday paper and she ran in saying "I've got pink! I've got pink!"
who cares?

bizzi · 13/03/2007 15:09

dd1 (9)refuses to wear pink, finding her girly unpink clothes is not easy, she tends to live in boys clothes. I see the frustration (and don't really like pink myself) but have learnt to live with boys fashion instead

scoobydoo99 · 13/03/2007 16:11

I'm a bit fed up by the lack of other colour options when buying clothes for my dd -I'm not a big fan of pink. However, she's been given a lot of pink stuff and when a baby often went out dressed from head to foot in it - what always surprised me was how many people still asked "is it a boy or a girl?"

hippipotami · 13/03/2007 16:35

The lack of other colours for clothes is frustrating. I also detest anything with sparkles and sequins.

I find this whole pink pram/buggy thing a bit dare I say it chavvy??

DonnyLass · 13/03/2007 16:44

tis blummin annoying

and that sickly pink is really irritating

DH insisted (tis a rare thing for him so I let him stamp his foot )that when we bought our dd a spare chuck-arounf buggy t'other day we got the blue one rather than the nasty pink one that m/care currently selling

... and then smugly declared

'she's so pretty that noone will mistake her for a boy anyway'

he's correct of course!

Pumpkin Patch is good for boys and girls stuff in cheerful not-gender-stereotyped colours ...

yellowrose · 13/03/2007 16:46

I absolutley hate pink and think that it is sexist to colour code any child. I would never wear pink myself, so wouldn't put it on my kids either. I only buy ds very neutral colours that both sexes can wear, beige, brown, white, green, etc.

I do like a bit of pink and purple mixed into his clothes though as they mix well, i.e. a nice pastel pink and brown or khaki is a lovely combination. But very rare when looking for boys clothes. I bought him a purple cardigan recently, it was in the girls section, but I don't care as it looks beautiful on him.

yellowrose · 13/03/2007 16:47

DonnyLass, my ds is so pretty he gets mistaken for a girl all the time

expatinscotland · 13/03/2007 16:48

My daughter loves pink. I know not why. I do not argue because I know there are many ways in which her tastes will differ from mine.

It's just a colour.

DonnyLass · 13/03/2007 16:52

yellowose ... let's betroth them ...!

yellowrose · 13/03/2007 16:58

DonnyLass - let's, they will have beautiful babies

yellowrose · 13/03/2007 16:59

I know expat. My nieces all went through the damned pink phase, wear less of it now as teenagers, thank goodness !

MadameSleepsLessAndLess · 13/03/2007 17:05

I have one dd, dress her in pink, blue or red. I really don't care that much about the colour of her outfit, she appears to suit blue much better anyway, she has big blue eyes. I think I would be slightly worried about me if I was getting this upset/offended by a particular colour. Surely there a bigger things worth getting upset about, sorry it offends you too.