Stroller suitable for...

[minisoksmakehardwork]

Baby! Or newborn, twins, triplets, toddler.

I've noticed locally to me a huge number of posts lately asking for a stroller suitable for a girl or a boy.

Now I've yet to find a stroller which has special place for boys to put their penis so why has this way of asking become a thing?

I was told 'sorry, not suitable' when I offered up a single stroller in navy blue complete with muff and rain cover.

I'm pretty sure my eldest daughter didn't care what colour the pushchair was as long as she was warm and dry. And her baby brother didn't suffer from me not locating the penis holder on it either. Why oh why when everyone wants to be so blooming woke, is it seen as so necessary to define ones child by a colour.

Re: lego sets for girls. I get that there is a beauty salon, but the first one out of that line I got for my daughter was a motorbike mechanic.

I can almost imagine a changing mat for a boy being a thing though if it came with a little canopy to stop the wee going everywhere. I can’t imagine that’s what was requested though...

I get "You're son is beautiful" (olive skin, blue eyes and a weird amount of long dark hair DD is odd looking for a small baby) probably defaulted to make because:

Pram - burgundy, a could DP and I Like and wear lots
Car seat - light grey (not used much for less practical colour)
Clothes - mustard cardigan, navy tights, cream romper, white Peter Pan collar.

The lack of bows and pink "my baby has a vagina" throws people.

DP Pointed our when picking her clothes out this weekend there was a lot of yellow and not much to go with the pink thing (gift) we were trying to put her in, I replied that it would work easier if the next one was (some of the pink is too much but I think a few things would look nice if their colouring is the same).

Buying things specifically for each baby to use for 2 weeks is so wasteful.

I saw a post on FB once asking for a baby bath for a girl. I offered a green one. The woman responded “err, it’s for a GIRL!” so baby girls can’t have their bath in their private bathrooms where no-one sees them in a green bit of plastic. Pink was the only acceptable option I believe.

It's an environmental issue as well. DSis worked with a girl who had little boy and the associated baby guff, then bucked it all out and bought it all again in pink when she found out no. 2 was a girl. Because obviously her wee girl couldn't use a multi-coloured bouncer or grey pram such waste.

I know I'm having a girl and I quite like a bit of pink and traditional "girliness", but I don't understand this thinking at all. I want her to have variety in her clothes and toys, rather than force her into a box when she's too young to choose herself.

I had a black pushchair for mine. Does this mean my DC are going to grow up to be Goths?

My mum had me in a British Racing Green pram, I'm mildly goth.

www.zazzle.co.uk/boys_pink_beanie_baby_beanie-256999538466099973

I grew up in the 70s/80s. Our buggies were brown, red, and blue stripes :)

My MIL got a buggy/pram set for her house at a bargain price because the old owner was expecting a child of the opposite sex and couldn't possibly keep the one they had. Bizarrely, I can't remember if it was pink or blue - but it serviced all of my MIL's grandchildren with no problem, whichever sex they were.

minisoksmakehardwork

I posted immediately underneath to apologise for not reading the whole post...and ask people to ignore me.

Funnily enough MIL recently said to me that we will need to get rid of our buggy/travel system and our stroller and buy new when we have DC2 (I'm not pregnant, not trying, just in her head) as they are for a boy. When I responded with the truth, which is when we bought the main buggy we didn't know if it was for boy or girl so went for Navy Blue she was horrified that I'd even considered putting a girl in this buggy and even more so when I said we'd be keeping the recently bought light grey stroller which can also be used by (currently fictitious) DC2. She genuinely didn't seem to understand my point, not to mention the waste, both financial and environmental.

I had this recently. I was selling a black pushchair on eBay, so there were lots of pictures. Someone messaged me to ask if it was suitable for a girl. When I said yes, and that I had used it successfully for my daughter, she replied saying she had found something "more suitable". At the time I just thought she was a bit odd but now I wonder if she was trying to ask if the buggy was secretly pink or sparkly?! Who knows?

I had a bright purple pram (an original sports babyjogger with bike style pneumatic tyres) with a boy inside it.

I bought it because I liked being outdoors and bright colours. Ordered it before I knew the sex of the baby - I always thought prams were for parents - babies don’t care about anything but comfort 🤷‍♀️

That baby is coming up 19 now and doesn’t even remember the pram, let alone have any gender confusion because of it (surely a sporty purple pram would make for a non-binary baby).

How have things changed so much in a generation?

Sorry @VickyEadie - I missed that. Humblest apologies.

Today's requests have been for an activity centre suitable for a girl and a cot suitable for a boy. I honestly despair at some people.

Dd1 & ds1 both shared a beautiful grey/green prism. Twins had to have a double stroller. in brown and with an awesome crocodile on it!

@ISaySteadyOn - we've had exactly the same with ds2 - refusing to use a bowl/cup because it was pink and had Minnie Mouse on, therefore it was for a girl! Took him up to DV's wardrobe and pointed out the pink shirts daddy wears, plus the fact that ds1's favourite and most loved toy in the whole world is a very scraggly pink dog! (He accosted his twin sister's when they were very small).

I am agog at this.

It's a buggy ffs.

Black out n abouts all the way!

I commented along the same lines outside of FWR (think it was chat or AIBU), and got flamed! I was told firmly that people can buy what they like for their babies (well duh!) and questioning whether the baby would care was being a miserable killjoy.

From my sins I belong to some sling trading groups and a bugaboo selling group on FB (still need to get rid of some stuff, despite my youngest being 6) and it’s rife; people requesting “nice and girly” fabric prints for their slings, or asking where they can get a custom made Disney Princess hood for their bugaboo. We just got everything in black or grey and used them for DS then DD.

I see this all the time on selling sites, people turning down perfectly good things because they are the wrong colour. And the range of gender appropriate colours has grown rapidly over the last five to ten years- not just pink and blue, but red, yellow, green, purple and even black and brown.

Why is it so important for parents to have their children dressed in the "right" clothes and colours? I guess there is certainly an element that believes it is traditional (even though it isn't), some fear of feminised boys/latent homophobia, a desire for conformity, a desire that children's sex is prominent to strangers I suppose. I wonder if it is because some of the traditional social boundaries and men/women's roles have been lost in the last forty years and this is part of a replacement backlash, a sense of self-definition by clothing or a reinforcement of gender roles. Part of it has definitely been driven by money and companies seeing the opportunities for parents to buy two sets of everything rather than one. Fascinating if it wasn't for the environment and personal impact of this behaviour.

I had a red pushchair and a black pushchair, but found that even if I dressed my children in the correct specific colours, strangers still mistook them for the other sex, because one had a massive shock of blond curls and the other was practically bald for years.

The only thing I do want a specific colour for is leggings because DS has inherited my (lack of) height genes and so wears a lot of leggings so they don't drag on the floor. I specifically want darker colours (usually more associated 'boy' colours). Not because they're 'boy' colours but because he attracts dirt and dark colours hide it better and wash out easier. Annoyingly I've found that after about 9-12 months I have found it incredibly hard to find these in shops other than in the pastel pinks, lemons etc. I don't care what department I buy them from, he's 16 months, he really couldn't care- but the amount of vanish I get through would pay the mortgage

@mummabear2212 have you tried sainsburys? They've got a large selection of different coloured children's leggings at the moment. Also matalans a good shout.

Brilliant, thanks @Aimily, will have a proper look there.

Primark have black/navy/striped/grey leggings in the 4-7 range, so they might have them in 0-4 sizes too (I haven’t looked though).

I dont think vicky can be offended that people didn't read her subsequent posts when she didn't even get to the third line before she had a pop and decided the post wasn't appropriate for FWR.

I mean you can at least read the op.

Op it drives me fucking crazy. pjs suitable for a 6 month old girl like she will grow a penis because she slept in a bkue babygrow

People even doing it when asking for free stuff.

I had someone refuse to sell me a white cardi because it was for a boy. It was white!! I even said I didn’t care about the buttoning thing. Why are buttons on different sides according to whether you are male or female? Our hands and brains are pretty much the same.

@snarglefisker it's a hark back to the olden days when servents dressed their masters.

It's not, actually. It dates from women wearing trousers.

Most men are right-handed, so when flies for trousers were invented, the buttons were positioned for ease of right-handed use. Women's trousers had no flies, they did up the side or back. When women started wearing trousers with flies, they had to be buttoned on the other side to men's trousers, to feminise the masculine garment.

It's not, actually. It dates from women wearing trousers.

They say every days a learning day, I was told what I had said when I asked about it growing up. So thank you for correcting me.