Am I a the only person that thinks those girl baby bows are horrific?

[noirmum]

I’ve been wondering if anyone agrees but these baby bows are so freaking HORRIBLE!! They’re so ugly and giant and makes the baby girl look stupid. Nobody needs to know the gender of your baby that bad. Babies don’t know where their feet are never mind what gender they are meaning they don’t care what gender they get called. If you really wanted to be obvious about their gender you’d buy girly clothes and girly toys which just proves that the bows are literally just to use the baby as an aesthetic!! At least it points out the mothers that care more about their baby looking aesthetically pleasing than them being comfy in a nice little hat and outfit. If my baby is a girl I hope to God nobody gifts me a bow bigger than her newborn head.

I’ve never liked them - nor piercings or jewellery for babies/young children (boys or girls).

Unnecessary.

I hate them. Not just because they're not my style and I don't see why a baby girl has to look that girly, but I primarily hate them because I think they're uncomfortable. I tried putting on on my little girls for a photo once, and they just kept pulling them off. They are also potentially a strangling hazard. It just clearly prioritises looks rather than comfort and safety. (I never put my babies in denim for similar reasons).

Another reason I hate them though, is that they seem to have changed the window of what people expect little girls to look like, so that my little girls, who both had virtually no hair until they were about 2, were constantly being mistaken for boys even when they were wearing pink frilly dresses, as if people nowadays can't understand that a girl can be a girl even if she's not wearing a stupid uncomfortable bow. It's not the end of the world, like I don't actually care if they think my baby is a boy, but I just can't help but think we've taken a couple of steps backwards in terms of gender, to the point where a boy can just be, whereas a girl has to wear a stupid, uncomfortable, unnecessary and potentially dangerous accessory at all times.

What other reasons could it be?

I think they're daft as hell but I only have boys so what do I know?

I haven’t seen a baby in one in real life because I’m living in a “naice” area. Phew!

What a sneering turn of phrase, in any context.

Strictly the preserve of chavs.

The debate about babies being dressed to advertise their gender (sex) reminds me of the horrific chapters in Wild Swans and a A Visit From the Footbinder. Tiny Chinese girls had their feet broken and bent double so that they would always take tiny steps which was supposed to be attractive and girly. The reality was the feet were deliberately deformed and the women suffered terribly all their lives from the consequences of a cultural fashion for baby girls.
Surely, the important thing is for all babies to be dressed safely and practically.
I think we all have in mind the terrible consequence of a woman undergoing dangerous surgery (BBL) to look cute and girly. Otherwise dressing baby girls for show can lead to unreal expectations about girls needing to look cute and sexy even as adult women.
I do wonder if MN in 19th century China would have had posters defending foot binding (they look so cute!) The practice was still common up until the mid 20th century. It was outlawed in 1912 but lingered for decades.

Well, gender as a concept is essentially dodgy as all fuck. Except in the language sense.

Think how stupid it is that whether someone is a woman / girl or man / boy should be determined by what they’re wearing or whether they have holes in their ears. I know it’s a thing but it’s still stupid.

I just can't help but think we've taken a couple of steps backwards in terms of gender, to the point where a boy can just be, whereas a girl has to wear a stupid, uncomfortable, unnecessary and potentially dangerous accessory at all times.

They do not have to wear them, and indeed you put them on your own children for some photos, so they must have appealed to you on some level. Mothers do not have to follow the herd.

I agree - they're hideous.

I personally find them hideous, I never wanted to turn my kids into an ornament, and I hate the sex-stereotyping of children.

But we all like different things.

For the people who do like them, enjoy the pics of your babies and hope they don’t strangle or suffocate

Hideous and naff

Tacky. As. Fuck.

I don’t like them and always said I found headbands on bald babies ridiculous.
But then when my youngest was born a family member kept joking that her hair made her look like a sex offender (charming I know) and to be fair she was bald on top with hair round the sides and did look like a little old man so I bought a few wide headbands to hide it until the top grew in a bit more. The bows were nowhere near that big though…and looking back to those photos she looks utterly ridiculous.

Agree. Some people have clearly led sheltered lives if they think a hairband is "horrific".

Horrible- along with things like jeans, denim jackets and skirts, various zips, fiddly buttons etc in size 0- 6 months. Why the hell wouldn't a parent want to dress their little baby with comfort as top priority?

When I had babies, it was mainly baby gros and rompers, but now things are even better with super comfy and easy to take on/off leggings and tops. Let babies be babies...
And those enormous bows look even more ridiculous on bald babies.

I hate bow hairbands on baby girls especially as they are mostly bald babies with no hair ti hold back. I think they're probably worn by babies with mothers who pay for a cake smash photo shoot and buy their daughter skincare when she's 10.

And yet we're conditioning the next generation to think that if they don't want to conform to gender sterotypes they should;

-question the validity of the sex they were assigned at birth to a point that they develop grave mental health problems
-refuse to acknowledge the biological reality of their sex
-deny people the safety and the human right to use a bathroom/changing room designated to their biological sex
-Force all of society to address them by whatever gender they choose/make up and label anyone that refuses to do this as transphobic
-take medication with unknown side effects to wildly alter the way their body develops, render them infertile and have mutilating plastic surgery

Rather than

'Hey you're a boy who wants to wear a dress/a girl who prefers short hair and a football kit. That's awesome. Get out there and explore the world and express yourself however you want. It's really not appropriate for anyone to be labelling you as gay/transgender at age 5 because you played with your sister's barbie doll once so we aren't going to overthink it. Let's just get out there and be the kid you're meant to be'

Completely agree with you in an ideological sense. Whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by their biology not what they wear and assuming costumes associated with being M or F doesn't make you that sex. However I don't think that's what's happening with the bows. Parents aren't putting them on their baby to make them a girl. They are putting them on their baby to show, in the light of limited other options, that they ARE a girl. Because whether we like it or not, a bow is almost universally understood to signify the female sex. Even on cartoon animal characters. All the parents are doing is saying their baby IS female.

My niece wears these for special occasions , and admittedly they are very cute but I couldn’t be bothered with the faff so there’s a strict ‘no bows’ rule when she stays.

Wall-to-wall pink is the go-to indicator, surely? I honestly think it’s as simple as some parents not liking to see their daughters bald, so ‘disguising’ it with an adornment.

I like them.

I hate them, tacky chavvy things.

Blimey, are they still going? I thought they were bad enough when mine was a baby in the Nineties. Particularly when the poor little girl was almost bald, it accentuated that, somehow.