New parent not sure what to think about the endless pinkness.

[Doodlegoogle]

I'm expecting my first child - a girl.

I've started looking for a few clothes naively expecting to find plenty of choice and a range of colours and styles.

Admittedly, I've not looked far, just in the supermarkets, a couple of online places and a nearly new sale. I'm finding myself increasing disturbed by the sea of pink and am leaping on anything that isn't 'girly'.

I'm really struggling to work out what I think about this.

Part of me thinks - its just a colour. I personally quite like pink and wear a fair amount. Its not like I feel its ever affected my views as how could a mere colour do that and I consider myself a feminist. Its my stepson and my nephews favourite colour and as a wider family we've never really given that any thought so why should it matter whether a girl wears it or not. I've not previously had any issue with pink one way or the other before now.

Another part of me is developing a seriously strong aversion to anything pink and I'm somehow finding it all rather sinister. I can't believe that such tiny children are labelled 'blue' or 'pink' from such a young age and what is starting to feel like regimented uniform on the basis of gender. I really don't remember wearing much pink as a child at all and somehow am finding the whole thing sickening.

I can't work out if I'm just completely over reacting to what is simply a colour as really what difference should it make? She can wear pink, blue or rainbow coloured spots and it shouldn't make any difference. Surely, I think, there are more important things to worry about. And yet, somehow it just feels wrong and I can't quite rationalise why.

What do others think? Over-reaction or not? And if I'm reacting like this to the first tiny issue how am I going cope as a parent of a daughter when more serious things come along!?

You will be innundated by pink for many years.

Retailers have jumped well and truly onto that particular bandwaggon and are very reluctant to get off.

Boys get endless sport or army motifs that piss me off just as much as the pink.

I got all white for my babies. It made washing much easier, and they looked soooo lovely in it! They all wore white everything till they started crawling and the white turned grey!

Once the white phase is over with, independent suppliers, fair trade retailers and second hand shops are your friends!

Like you, I'm not entirely sure about the sea of pink but I guess I've come to accept it.
amistillsexy is right, it goes both ways. Boys get khaki and grey. I think that baby clothing manufacturers have figured out that if you can separate boys and girls clothing completely (and not offer unisex, multi coloured, hand-me-downable childrenswear) they will sell double the amount of clothing. My strategy is to only ever buy stuff that I can use for either gender. It's not because of gender-politics though, it's for economic/environmental reasons.
I never buy 'Princess' (always in pink, for girls) or 'Here comes trouble' (always aimed at boys) clothes because they are tasteless I think they encourage dreadful stereotyping.

I know a woman who had a similar aversion and she went out of her way to buy neutral colours for her daughter?s clothing and bedding and even bought toys that weren?t typically aimed at either sex.

Six months down the line she got a bit pissed off with people asking ?How old is he?? or commenting ?Isn?t he a bonny baby?? etc. That clearly stung more than the pink issue because sure enough, on went a little headband with glittery butterflies.

just log onto amazon and buy 'cinderella ate my daughter' by peggy orenstein instead.

and congrats, obv.

Congratulations :)

I hate the sea of pink, too. I don't hate the colour pink, I hate the message that my daughter is being sent from day 1 that there is only one way to be if you are a girl or a woman.

Girl's clothes are hardly ever about doing anything or going anywhere. No cars, no rocketships, no boats, no sports, no trains, no 'cheeky' this or 'trouble' that. Boys do things and go places. Girls are for looking at, and so girls' clothes are about decorating the ornament. That's the message.

I buy a lot of dinosaur, animal and train motifs (she's a toddler now, and these are all things she likes) from the boy section, and from the girl section on the odd occassion that they can be found there. NEXT's current collection is pretty good, lots of blue and yellow and orange and green, and cars on babygros for baby girls. There's a girls' dinosaur t-shirt too (but it's pink!).

I don't buy any pink stuff for dd at all except for the aforementioned dinosaur shirt from NEXT. It's not that because I have a problem with her having some pink or 'girly' things, but because she gets so much of that from others - every single gift she has ever gotten from friends and family has been overtly marketed for girls only, and about 90% of it pink - that the only way to have some balance at home is to provide the contrast rather than more of the same.

I'm expecting my first baby in a few days - a boy - and am both concerned and very bored with the gender stereotyping of so many baby products. Not just clothes, but a quick potter around John Lewis will show you 'princessy' or 'trains' baby sleeping bags/baby baths/bed clothes. Our baby will be wearing handmedowns in a variety of colours (previous owners boy and girl babies), including some pink princessy things, and brightly-coloured all-purpose cute things we've bought ourselves - I couldn't care less whether the general public erroneously believes he is a girl or a boy, and he certainly won't, aged two months old!

We specifically asked our families not to buy gendered baby clothes as presents, but everything my mother has sent us is blue and covered in trains, cars, tractors or I'M A BOY! She genuinely believes men and women are more or less different species, and I think she's worried that our baby may catch some odd ideas from my interest in dismantling restrictive gender boundaries. I was sorry to have told family that he was a boy (although we sat on it for quite a lot of the pregnancy), because of the spate of unbelievably gendered comments. He would kick, and there would be a chorus of 'Oh, he's a little footballer!' or 'What a little thug!' which got immensely tiresome.

Why not just buy "boys" clothes? We found the same thing - too much pink for girls - so we bought clothes we liked without looking at the gender labels. We now have a dd who climbs trees in her trainers, star wars t-shirts and trousers and a ds who loves wearing pink rugby tops :)

You can like pink and hate the pinkification of girls. I hate the way babies are immediately labelled on this way. It's disturbing. That's not pink itself, it was a 'boy's' colour in Victorian times, it's the way society is using pink to denote girl.

On a practical note, I get stuff from h&m as they do fun bright colours rather than pink/blue shit

Buying boys clothes is the way to go, Not least because I have a son 21 months younger than DD. I buy as many primary coloured t-shirts and sweatshirts as possible and avoid 'princesses and monkeys'.

We still get them as gifts and do put the children in them, But they wouldn't be my first choice. (esp. matalans sparkly sequinned PINK evertything)

I think girls generall y have much more choice than boys

perhaps white and yellow clothes even purple red etc.

OP and others with pink-aversion (I'm one too - DD has some pink things, but mostly I go for other colours if I can) you may find the Pink Stinks website of interest....

And impending congratulations, by the way!

There is a lot of pink - but relative to what was available when I was a child there is also a lot more of everything else too.

I often buy 'boys' clothes for DD - T shirts are usually thicker, nicer cotton than flimsy 'girls' ones. She refused pale pink after the age of about 5 and I've never had to send her out naked yet

I seem to remember getting nice non-pink clothes from JoJoMamanBebe when DD was small (they did pinks but blues etc too).

As to toys - if there's a 'normal' one and a pink one, just buy the normal one unless it looks better in pink.

Congratulations

I have a four-year-old who just may be a reincarnation of Barbara Cartland. She went to nursery this morning in head-to-toe pink, clutching a pink toy dog with a diamante collar and a diamante handbag (accessories acquired by her father).

As a baby, I rarely dressed her in pink (she looked so lovely in cream colours, sigh) but I didn't purge pink garments bought by family and friends. Nowe she mostly wants to chose for herself, and it's almost always pink or purple. I don't want to make it into an issue, I don't want to send messages of girly stuff = undesirable, and I respect her autonomy.

Sorry, that last sentence sounded particularly sanctimonious. It's basically just how I justify my laissez faire attitude to myself.

My DDs wore a lot of pink as I am too tight to buy things myself so hand me downs and gifts tended to be pink.
I don't like pink.
My DDs look better in blue. When I have bought anything I have considered it's reuse, so a navy/red/green coat will do for a boy or girl - little did I know that DD1 would be the eldest of 3 DDs! I hate toys that could be unisex turned into "girls" toys by colouring them pink.

I have 3dds, at the minute Next, Sainsburys and Asda are doing a lot of non pink babygros, bottoms, tops etc. I was in M&S yesterday and they have a lot of greens, reds and yellows.

To be honest, pink clothes do not bother me in the slightest neither do pink toys, nor "character" clothes. Pink really suits my daughters as does navy, I am of the just a colour brigade but I know a lot of people aren't.

I was adamant that I wasn't going to dress my DD in pink. I decorated her nursery in a brightly coloured jungle theme.

However, since she was born we've received gifts and hand-me downs which are all pink. She is in pink most of the time. She looks sweet in it, but I prefer her in bright colours. I just won't spend money on clothes for her while we have so many perfectly wearable clothes that happen to be pink. I am considering cracking out some fabric dye. What do we think? Does that work?

It's easy to avoid. All our baby gros were white or yellow. We had lots of children and they all wore the same ones passed down. The first baby got stuff from jumble sales. Only people into being a consumer and with money to burn really fuss about clothing for chidlren. It is morally deficient to be too bothered about that kind of thing.

We did buy some feminist books when they were little - mother the plumber, mother a doctor etc etc I think that helps. Both my girls have picked pretty good careers.

Thanks all. Its helping clarify my thoughts. It is definitely something to do with the point OneHand raises about the message that there only one way to be a girl. Equally, I think I'm torn because I can also see the point that there are really more important things to be worrying about than clothes and it is after all just a colour. A balance seems to be what I feel more comfortable with.

Thanks also for the book and website recommendations. I realise now how hard my mother worked when I was a child to avoid sterotyping me and and my brother. We both ended up with all sorts of toys including dolls for him and toy cars for me and clothes of all colours. I guess we will end up doing the same. If she is anything like me and DP, she'll be happiest digging up stones in the garden or building something anyway and any pink will rapidly become black.

I'm certainly going to buy some boys clothes and unisex. I was intending to buy most things second hand and somehow the first nearly new sale I went to appeared particularly pink. There was even hideous pink lego which seemed particularly unnecessary. Whatever happens I will NEVER buy that.

it is depressing when things that I would have considered 'gender neutral' (blue, green, yellow, red... heck, most things!) are shrunk down into pink for girls and blue for boys. I only have a boy but my experience for him was that the rainbow grew a bit as he got bigger- baby boys had pale blue EVERYTHING, now most colours (except for pink and purple) crop up here and there, though it IS hard getting past the sludgy camo-gear. I've always bought as neutral colours as I can, with one eye on it all being worn by DC2, of whatever gender that child might be. Polarn O Pyraet make gorgeous, great quality, brightly coloured kids clothes. If only they didn't cost a bloody fortune. I tend to scour their sales and grab any stuff I see of theirs on ebay, when needing new stuff for DS.

Do you know, when we decided not to find out the gender of our baby people were absolutely aghast, and the first thing most people said was "but how will people know what colour things to buy?" Seriously. It was so irritating it made me even more determined not to stereotype the poor thing before it was born!

I like pink and I don't think typically feminine-associated behaviours are less important than typically masculine associated ones (For example, why is sport considered 'serious' and fashion considered 'trivial'? Can anyone think or a single reason that doesn't involve institutional sexism?), but I don't like limitations and I loathe exclusion. Everyone can wear every colour. Colours are for everyone!

Pink lego just depresses me. Don't be afraid of the creative, scientifically fascinating toy of infinite possibilities! We'll make it pink so you can see that even girls can use it!

urgh.

OneHandWavingFree said what I feel with regards to motif's. DD likes dinosaurs, helicopters and diggers atm but it hard to find ones that aren't in dark 'boys' colours. I didn't buy the NEXT top due to the words, I think it was cute-a-saurus or summit, didn't mind the pink bit.

As someone else said when they are not in pink but a gender neutral colour then people assume your baby/toddler is male.

Like lifeissweet I personally prefer nice bright clothes which in the UK is hard to find. Had no problems in the US.

Apparently this dreadful fashion is child led. The little girls love pink. Flipping awful and very dull. Funnily, when I was a little girl I was indifferent to the colour pink and my favourite was blue. I also loved lime green and cherry red. All this pink is so damned boring!

mine wore pack-of-three white sleepsuits with white onesies underneath, and then were dressed in navy, white and red. all handed down to the next one. it made no difference. the world and his wife bought the girls pink and the boy blue, and they inhabit the same world as disney. by four both girls declared pink and purple were their favourite colours. fortunately, dd1 now favours green, and dd2 blue. they do grow out of it if you encourage individuality and don't force them either way. and ultimately (although thank feck not mine) someone's child really is going to prefer pink.

the pressure really wasn't on from the marketing pov when we were tots, so our parents didn't have to make any political statements wrt colour of clothing. it's just consumerism gawn mad over the last twenty years.

Little girls nowadays are herded towards pink from the moment the 20 week scan determines their sex, it's not surprising they self-identify pink as being for girls when they get old enough to make informed choices about what they (have learned to regard as) the most appropriate clothing for their gender.

The fashion for pink=girl is not "child led" IMO - I bet if everyone dressed their girls in green from the second they came out the womb (decorated their rooms in green, bought them prams etc. trimmed in green, gave them mostly green-coloured toys, plates, cups, cutlery, hair-ornaments, towels etc. etc.) then we would say "The little girls love green" when they opted for it once they were old enough to express an opinion on the matter. Because green would be seen as being intricately woven into their gender identity and the way they differentiate themselves from those different to themselves (boys). And you can bet your life that in that particular scenario, most boys (and their parents) wouldn't countenance green for themselves.

I was also indifferent to the colour pink as a young girl, mainly because at that time (not SO long ago!!) pinkification hadn't taken hold in the way it has now. It was just another colour.

Now it's too bound up with over-repressive gender-stereotyping and putting people into boxes.