DS2 (5) wants a Barbie styling head for his birthday?!

[annh]

DS2 who is a total sweetie and into normal "boy" things like lego, power rangers, etc is also very into all things pretty and glittery. He loves commenting on and playing with my ear-rings, hair and clothes and quite often wears my old hats and necklaces around the house. The only thing he really wants for his birthday is a Barbie styling head which he played with once at a friend's house after Christmas. DH is opposed, I am wavering. I don't want to have a heavy conversation about "boy" toys and "girl" toys but neither do I want him to be teased at school if he tells anyone what he got. PILs will probably have apoplexy as well but that is an observation, not a consideration in what to do! What does the Mumsnet intelligensia think?

PandaG I think you're right about the 'programmed' pink ... little girls seem to have the pink gene. We avoided anything girly to start off with but when she got old enough to mutter an opinion... pink it was!

Agreed, the male cousin who hates pink has a twin sister with the pink gene in spades. Her mother was a goth, and I'm not sure I've ever seen her without at least one black piece of clothing.

Realistically the styling head has a short life expectancy, but at 5 all toys are like that.

At 2yo 2.1's current favourite toy is some action figure of "Horribly evil mutant nuclear death droid from Hell", or something similar :)
He treats it like a doll, hugs the evil death droid and talks to it like a friend, and recently when ill, it provided emotional support.

I'm sure I've read in several places that pink was
a boy's colour in Victorian times - a search on
Google found this:
"...A bit of colour trivia from the BBC's Magazine Monitor page:

Pink was a boy's colour while blue was thought better for girls - a "generally accepted rule" according to The Ladies Home Journal in 1918, which described pink as "more decided and stronger" while blue was "more delicate and dainty"....

I think you should get him a styling head if
he wants one - encourage him to be creative
with it.