What is it with the pink and blue thing anyway? This distinction between boy babies and girl babies? I know it never existed when I was a child and my mother kept popping out babies every few years. I remember yellow being popular and blue for all babies. And baby gear being gender neutral (rompers for all!). And my baby sister being dressed in navy and my own babies in black and white. And my daughter making up her daughter's nursery in all the colours of the rainbow. Dramatic, true colours and not pastels. As I did mine, in my time, in brilliant turquoise and emerald green.
I was mulling over these thoughts after a friend told me it was important to know the future grandchild's gender for "decorating and clothing" reasons. Whut? What can one respond as this thinking is so prevalent and I'm getting a little tired of the lone voice crying in the wilderness thing. Girls are still soft and fluffy and delicate and need to be pink-cushioned and sugared and spicied?
Are we so regressive? I was relieved and validated, therefore, to find this excellent post today in Sociological Images.
And am I alone in thinking this early colour sorting has an effect on the babies themselves - studies have shown that people react differently to babies. Pink babies are held, talked to and cuddled more, blue babies are not. Early conditioning. Not a good thing for the lonely little boy baby and his future emotional availability.
