To be fed up with every child product in the shops being pathetically girly or aggressively boyish?

[BroccoliSpears]

Every bloody 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).

My friend bought a pink potty for her dd 3 years ago, and has just gone and bought a blue potty for her ds now. WTF?

I'm not really bothered about my ds having supposedly girly things (the poor lad sleeps in pink flowery babygros often enough because we're not going to replace perfectly good dd hand-downs ), but mostly I just want to buy nice, normal coloured things. Stripey things, and spotty things.

I'm not suggesting that boys should wear dresses, or that they should all wear unisex mao suits, but why the feck do we need to have gender variation on knives and forks? On ready beds? I'm struggling to think of something where you don't have to choose whether to get the boys or girls version.

Why do we even have such strong gender variation in such young children?

And who got to decide that butterflys are for girls and buses are for boys? It's so random.

Totally agree. Mao suits R us. And Mao shoes, if they exist. The only sandals right for DD's feet came in pastel pink or navy blue. And they didn't have navy in her size.

I try to put her in gender-neutral colours, but a few months ago she got a bright pink hat and hideous pale pink velour tracksuit embroidered with 'cute' teddies (yuck) and the slogan 'Little Angel' (double yuck) as a present from my mother, who has no taste. Obviously it went straight into the 'emergency change of clothes' bag for nursery. One day, DD managed to tip milk all over her outfit and I had to wheel her home in the nightmare combo. So that's pink top, trousers, shoes and hat.

And on no less than two occasions that day I was complimented on my little boy's outfit. Weird, non?

Oh yes, ELC. Pink easel, blue easel. Pink water table, blue water table. WTF?
ds1's 97-year-old German Catholic god-grandmother says that in her day pink was a boy's colour as it was derived from red, and blue a girl's colour as it was the Virgin Mary's colour.

I took 8-week-old ds1 out in a dusky pink babygro with a flowery kerchief for an improvised sunhat. In the chemist's a young woman cooed and asked how old 'she' was. I said 'he' is 8 weeks. She recoiled.
With ds2 I have become a lot more gender-conscious and avoid anything even vaguely flowery. Quite really.

dses wear IMO fairly neutral clothes, lots of fairly bright colours. ds1 has very slightly longish hair - short, but long all over iyswim. Both boys, when I am out and about with them, are almost inevitably referred to as girls - because they are not obviously boys.

My dd was wearing a bright girly coloured dress and tights last week and got called a boy - WTF?!

Dd2, a few weeks ago, was wearing: khaki sweatshirt with lizards (originally ds's) over shocking pink baby gro (initially dd1's, & one of very few pink items to cross the threshold). It was a chilly day.

So, we're at the local soft play/caff place, & a small girl comes over to play with dd1. 'Why is your girl baby wearing a boy's top?'

It's continual, & it actually wears you down - I try to compromise with girly top + hand me down jeans. But it does make me cross that 'not pink' = 'not for girls, then'.

I agree.

dp insisted on buying ds vests and babygros from the football club he supports last year. Well, at least ds is a boy and the clothes weren't too annoying. The girls' ones, apart from being pink, say, "when I grow up I'm going to be a footballer's wife".

We want Mao suits
actually, thinking about it, in ..... oooh, 1985, i had something in a canvas type fabric which i used to think of as my mao suit
bring 'em back
mao now, mao now

I get lots of DDs clothes from the "boy's" section. lovely navy/pale blue which really suit her - sets off her eyes and long fair hair beautifully. She recently bought herself a pogo stick from ASDA ... they come in 'girl' and 'boy' colours, she unhesitatingly chose the latter. So, a few weeks later did her much more girly friend. Its easier with girls, they can wear anything (well, obviously not some of the logos/designs you wouldn't want your boys seen in either).

The boy's T shirts always seem much better quality than the girls ones - heavier weight of cotton.

Oh, and Millets is a great place for active footwear and outerwear. I'm puzzled why anyone would go to a regular shoe shop rather than an outdoors specialist for that sort of kit. DD chose the navy boots not the pink ones, of course.

the jeans thing drives me INSANE
i just want jeans for DD without any sparkly glittery crap, flowers, or slogans. i often end up buying boys' jeans and clothes anyway

i have gorgeous clothes for both of them though, i must admit I haven't really had much of a problem (other than jeans - grr) finding stuff both new and secondhand. I've just had to look elsewhere tahn the main chains/department stores here (NZ). and I always buy things when I see them even when they're too big - have a lot of DS's next size up wardrobe already

Aaaaaaahhhhh [big sigh of relief]... I feel so at home on this thread.

For me, it's not just the gender colour-coding (which is nasty on many different levels), it's the tiny tiny range of colours available. Pink and lilac for girls, blue and mud for boys.

Then there are the plastic toys for little children which all come in buttercup yellow, pillarbox red and emerald green.

There are millions of possible colours in the world. Why oh why fixate on just 2 or 3?

As part of a one-woman crusade against this ridiculous trend, I've been painting the children's building blocks indigo, peppermint green, aquamarine, tangerine etc in a desperate attempt to give our eyes a bit of a rest from looking the same boring colours over and over and over.

If only I was sad obsessive enough, I'd dye their clothes too...

[NZ hijack: MrsJC, where do you go to buy new children's clothes? We've had some lovely second hand stuff off trademe, but I don't know of any shops around here that aren't either colour-coded or bizarrely expensive designer stuff - I assume there must be a happy medium somewhere?]

At last I've found my soulmates though you have made my blood pressure sky rocket at 6.30am The whole boy=blue/girl=pink thing INFURIATES me.
DD is 5.6 and as pink and girly as they come inspite of me actively avoiding all things girly as much as possible (I'm convinced she'll be a Goth by 13 though!)
With DS (2.8) its even harder to find bright colourful clothes though to my eternal pleasure (and a few friend's horror) his favourite top at the moment is a stripy navy and bright pink polo shirt I got in BHS.
Have slightly got round the bright stuff problem this year by tie-dying t-shirts - again his favourite is a bright pink and purple creation

I also HATE, HATE, HATE all the slogan stuff.

so what can we do about this? complain a lot? write to companies explaining why we wouldn't dream of buying 99% of their products?

When DD1(14) was a baby/toddler I used to buy a lot of things from ELC. They prided themselves on being non gender specific. In their catalogue they usually had little girls dressed as firefighters and playing with trains and the boys were playing with the toy kitchen and tea sets. I don't remember a single pink item in the shop. They also did baby equipment and clothes (in their Kingston shop anyway). The clothes were lovely and not vey pink iirc.

I can only assume that they made a commercial decision that this was not profitable enough - sadly. I do think that things have changed in recent years and not in a good way.

I bought DD2 a buzz wire toy from Argos recently and when I picked it up it was labelled as a boys toy - why?

erm... I have bought loads quite a few expensive-ish things at fancy baby stores, but not the really OTT stuff and I do wait for sales. I have lots of nature baby, pure baby and bobux stuff for DS. It's pricier but I find e.g that the nature baby vests/sleepsuits wash so much better than cheapo ones that it's worth it. He does have a Mokopuna top - expensive BUT lovely warm merino.

I get loads of stuff at JK - they are way better than Pumpkin Patch and seem to have a much nicer range of colours and not so much girly crap. Mostly, it's dedicated trawling of trade me and local charidee shops & discount malls though.

i hatwe this so much.

i have 3 dd's and am fed up of the pink glittery fairy crap.

and all clothes come in various shades of pink. or have pink belts with them, or soemthign glittery at some point.

dd3 is pirate mad. she has a pirates of the caribean water bottle. a boy at the school said 'thats for boys' she said 'no its for me!'. she doesnt get that boy=blue, pirates, cars etc. abnd i'm glad.

have been adding to the baby items i need, mainly bibs and stuff. and was annoyed as the pink and blue ones were a bit cheaper than the neutral ones, and i am on a bit of a budget atm. i dont want pink bibs. i just want bibs.

I don't actually find it that difficult to find things for my 3 girls without being swamped by glittery lilac and pink. It does depend which shop you go to. We don't go to all the expensive shops, though they are often better on the pink factor. But I do tend to avoid the shops which have too much pink. Especially cos dd1 and dd2 won't wear the pink stuff.

you have to find the shops which aren't so pinkified and stick with them. For toy shops we like musuem shops and traditional toy shops and so on. Or I shop online. but I avoid all those Next/mothercare/toysrus etc which do put it all in pink and blue aisles.

I haven't given birth yet and it is already driving me insane. I'm sorting therough all the hand me down's which is helpfully a lot of boys stuff - which I don't think is so bad, if I have a girl and everybody thinks she's a boy I can deal with that - but all of the pink stuff is going straight back in the boxes for extreme emergencies. I just can't stand the idea of dressing anybody in it it's just so violently bright and cutesy.

Do you think there are marketing people out there who assume all mum's have an extreme fear of forgetting what gender their baby is?

It is horrific I agree.
Clothes are bad enough- I refuse to put dd (2.6) in pink, and it really is a struggle.
I didn't have anything pink when I was a child, I don't have any pink clothes now, so why would she?
She has blonde hair and blue eyes, and looks stunning in blues, especially cornflower blue.
She doesn't get the 'Aww isn't he lovely' comments anymore as she also has amazing ringlets all down her back.

But the toys thing is just ridiculous. ELC is terrible at the moment, and toys r us etc.
And why, oh why does even colouring/stamping sets etc have to be boys or girls?
It either has Disney princesses on or tractors for feck sake!

Its not as if children can't tell the difference between genders- dd knew which were girls and which were boys at nursery at 18 mo.

i didnt relaise how 'pink' everything was till i had dd3. there seems to have a been a big movement in pink fo gilrs somewhere between 2002 and 2005.

dd3 colouring means she suits vibrant colours mroe trhan powder pink. she can pull off reds, cirrus coloyurs etc really well. especially when younger with her black eyes and black curly hair (her hair has lightened and straightened naturally as she has got older)

have been hunting on ebay for grobags. dont want pink, blue or beige. but have resigned myself to the fact that i may as well buy one new from bumpto3 in either the blue/purple stripe or the green stripe. becuase those colours are soooo cool! here

I'm the mum of a DS. Hate anything with a slogan on. Also tend to find that boys stuff gets relegated to the back of the shop and has less space. New toy shop open near us - a sea of pink. A wall full of floral clothes. Nothing for boys - part from a few shelves of Playmobil. Do they realise that half of mums won't be able to buy anything in there?
I've purposely tried to buy gender neutral stuff for bowls, toys etc.

Rant over.

I agree that its probably worse in some ways for boys - at least its still acceptable for the girls to wear non-pink & sparkly, even if hard to find, but much harder for boys above toddler age to wear 'girly' stuff.
Has anyone else noticed that the gender separation carries on in school - more insidious IMO than back in the 70s, when us girls got sent off to do sowing while the boys did carpentry & meccano. At least that you could protest against, whereas now, theoretically, any of them can choose anything, but the girls just 'happen' to all want to play in the home corner while the boys play with the k'nex et al.
DD spends hours playing with lego, hammering & drilling holes in things etc at home, but at school its dolls all the way. (oops, another rant)

This reminds me, has anyone seen the kids clothes in the new next directory? All the little boys stuff seems to be covered in skulls for some reason - is it just me or is it slightly weird to be dressing under 5's in clothes emblazoned with bones??

skulls etc are very big in the girls section as well. dd1 is in emo-pre teen heaven atm.

< more NZ hijack for MrsJC >

Am laughing because I think exactly the same as you. JK tons better than PP (and has better sales), and I love that baby stuff.

Rats, I was so hoping you'd discovered a secret cheap and wonderful shop!

< goes back to surfing trademe >

I am guessing that you don't like buses and lorries on boys clothes then?