Girls and pathological desire for PINK STUFF

[FlossieTCake]

(Sorry if this doesn't technically count as news - it was in the newspaper but a features section.)

The tyranny of pink, according to the Grauniad, is all because "pink sells".

Anyone else out there with daughters found this as annoying as I did?

colour-coding your kids is a very good idea! I disagree that boys clothes are boring though - I want most of the t shirsts I end up buying my 5 year old ds in handm

Quite right to lose the hoover. DS2 had one for Christmas once and all it ever did was leave little polystyrene balls all over the carpet and annoy everyone with the noise.

I read this article to my five-year-old (skimming over inappropriate parts and translating the hard parts!) and we had a discussion about how girls need lots of choices and how wanting to grow up to be a princess is not a very good ambition and what were more appropriate ambitions

I feel that as long as I counter-act the princess culture with some Serious Talking And Thinking then that's ok...

DD went through MASSIVE pinkness stage but how (4.6) she has said she only likes DARK pink... and purple, and red and orange and most colours except black and brown. And strangely she always chooses navy or black shoes, never the pink or purple?!
BUT she loves anything sparkly with nice princess dresses and tiaras and fairy wings, GROAN!

I agree about pink, it trivialises anything it adorns, anyone think of a national flag with pink in it? Any ruling body seat of parliament in a county decorated pink? Any decision making or powerhouse in the world decorated pink?
Will it ever be?
Nope.
Pink keeps girls from growing up and women thinking they are still girls with that level of power.
I will not even mention nightwear for grown women with pictures of fluffy kittens on or I will PUKE!

Yes Callisto it is very easy to influence our children. They hold a mirror to us and I have recently been thinking that as a society we are going backwards.

I grew up unaware of inequality. I recognise that this has much to do with being physically taller and stronger than both my brothers but even so.

OOOH...I think red is in this season (again)...Flossie, dress your red-head in red! My DTDs look stunning in any shade of it. Bottle green is particularly fab too.

Anyway, on topic - neither twin is particularly into pink, and although DTD1 went through a very short stage during which 85% of her wardrobe was pink, it lasted only a year and she got bored!

My friend has great success with using the 'princess' thing to encourage good behaviour in her 5yo - who is a bit of a wild child and quite tomboyish by nature, but loves all of the paraphernalia.

"What would Cinderella do?" is often the only weapon my friend has to stop her kicking her sister/remind her to use her knife and fork/encourage her not to lie down on the floor in Tesco and scream her head off.

That's probably quite worrying, isn't it?

I am shocked mildly surprised nobody has mentioned the replulsive Bratz, and any clothes with that logo on.

And don't even get me started on blardy Disney Pukey Princesses...

And on the subject of gendered ambitions: I remember reading somewhere that a boy only really becomes a man when he ceases to believe that being a train driver is the coolest job in the entire universe.

DS2 was quite keen on the Disney princesses for a bit. His bunk bed is still plastered in DP stickers that came home in a party bag about 3 years ago....

I can't mention those things Godzilla-verylongname said as typing it would cause me to kill myself by repeatedly banging my head on the keyboard.
If DD asked for them she would get locked in the wardrobe for 7 years.

If you are looking for non pink clothes, try some of the German mail order catalogues, such as Jako-o. We do not get nearly as much pink clothes here in Germany.

S.Oliver is also good, lots of non-pink clothes.

Also Verbaudet.

My other favourite shop (and much recommended on MN) is kidsshouldbekids.com.

I don't mind a bit of pink, but then I have no bother getting other colours here.

A friend hates pink and never bought her DD pink clothes. She wore lots of orange or turquoise or lemon until she was about 3yo and then her DD decided that she was only wearing pink. She is the most girly, pink, little princess that I know, much to the disgust of her mum.

don't see the problem myself, you are all overanalysing a tad

and if you want stuff that isn't pink go to Gap or H&M

Next and Mothercare et al are full of pink or lilac, proper shops imo have decent stuff

girls got pink, navy (with cherries all over it!), brown and red tops in Gap the other day

I used to say to dd: "I'll tell Daddy" until Daddy informed me that he didn't want to take the role of some dominant scary figure. I guess I was just repeating what my Mum said to us.

I find I am constantly self evaluating (ooh work jargon) what it is to be a woman - that is, what I want to show dd it is to be a woman.

Interesting discussion Flossie - and valuable.

lol at "what would princess do", although I might sometimes have been tempted by that.

Does anyone actually know of a 5yo who wears bras and thongs, as stated in the article?

I agree that the porn star t-shirts are repulsive.

Ah, the B - "bless their little teenage hooker hearts", as some columnist (probably Charlie Brooker) wrote. Or rather - don't. I avert my eyes wherever possible and am hoping that will be a trend that is thoroughly DEAD by the time DD is big enough to notice them.

yes vertbaudet good too
dd has khakhi trousers (v. practical) and a khakhi parka from there (makes her look like a mini-mod )
good for plain jeans too, and cheaper than babyGap

Miggsie - would that be a wardrobe guarded by a fire-breathing dragon, or just with a n enormous thorny hedge around it only accessible to a knight in shining armour????

Oliveoil, sorry dear, we obviously don't have proper shops here

are you on the moon?

I am a bit disturbed by this idea of being like a princess...it's the most boring up -tight thing to be unless maybe you're thinking of ground-breaking Shrek's Fiona who does karate etc. What worries me most is the kind of toys traditionally aimed at girls which are so much less fun than boys toys ( basically tea-making, childminding and imagining boyfriends )

Why, cos we haven't got Gap?

bluewolf, totally agree with you on princesses = boring. I can remember that epiphanic moment in my childhood when I decided that while Cinderella had a very pretty dress, I definitely didn't want to be her.

Obviously if as a parent you're concerned about overly-gendered, excessively pink stuff, you can just avoid buying it (for the most part - although oliveoil, it is difficult to get clothes in other colours! Baby Gap has some lovely non-pink stuff in at the moment but (a) most of it is only for under 12 months (b) it costs a bloody fortune). But then they go to school and everybody else's DDs seem to be dressed in pink and having Disney Princess parties and then they want to be pink just to fit in... eurgh.

As I said, I think the article wound me up most because despite all the worrying things it drew attention to, it implied overall that it was OK that this was the way things were. I hope I can encourage my DD to be a little more confident in her individuality. (Probably a lost cause as I have always been a terrible sheep about such things).

I am glad I've had boys first, if we have a girl for a start I'm not repainting that bedroom.

It just worries me that it's so one-dimensional - if you're a girl you can only dress/play/eat/sleep/travel in pink and play at being a fairy or a princess. In this day and age we should be broadening our daughters horizons not closing them in. Is it some sort of post-feminist reaction?

Agree that H&M is a notable exception - nearly bought DS some brown girls' cord trousers but they had blasted heart shaped knee patches. mind you he wouldn't care would he?