THERE'S SOMETHING WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT

This Pink thing. I think we need to discuss this Pink Factor thing that comes with having a girl baby. I have a lot of experience with boy babies. They’re easy. You can clean their bottoms with one wipe if you have to. A girl, she needs more care. Even from birth they are high maintenance. Boys may not have the widest choices of clothes, but at least you can never go wrong with a good green, grey, navy, red and denim.

But this girl domain is really difficult. Remember how I declared we would never wear pink? I still mean it, but I do actually like some shades of pink, and Pia does look nice in some deeper, stronger, murkier dusty pinks - the adult pinks, and usually worn with a liberal dose of red and white stripe, white to offset it all, or navy. I really don’t get head to toe pink, particularly if it’s a sugar pink colour, and while I concede some babies look great in it, I’m just not sure I can live with that. A little pink, yes, a lot, no.

Apparently though I misread the whole section in the baby manual which said that a girl can only wear pink, frills and frou frou to be called a girl in public. I hadn’t realized we’ve become so governed by gender identifiers that we rely on a mother dressing their kid in pink for the baby to register as a girl with anyone. I don’t think I gender neutralize Pia that much – I do try and get a stronger feminine feel to her clothes, and she does always wear something that signifies 'girl'. A knit top might have some stronger pinks in it, or a floral button, or a top might have some subtle scandinavian floral design on it or I might even get out the Liberty print things just to be extra sure, but no. She keeps being labeled a boy. I tried frills. She looks silly. She doesn’t have enough hair for bows and ribbon (OMG – Now there’s another post entirely) and really that’s just scary on an 8 week old baby anyhow.

So I’m on a crusade to get decent clothes for Pia, which don’t cost a huge amount, and have a new definition of ‘girl’ which fits with our design and fashion ethos, and which might set her up for being an individual later on. I know there are clothes out there which do this, but most are for 2 year olds and older. I want baby clothes which do this. The brain has been ticking away, and patterns have been sourced and resized and drafted out. Now I need to pray for the sewing gods to shine on me, and for the whole thing to work. And I’ll show the results eventually. Then we just have to work on her brother stopping introducing her as his little brother and calling her a he.

And what did Pia wear today?? Orange and white striped pants, a white singlet, and her lovely Toast top from Mariko (and printed by Mariko too, and that reminds me, I still need to blog about something special which happened before Pia was born and which hasn’t been publicly acknowledged yet) which is so damn cute I can’t stop smiling when she wears it.

Comments

[theresa]

I understand completely! Before we had our baby boy (8 months ago) we decided not to find out the sex, so I was buying clothes that I considered gender neutral (because I didn't want anything pink or frilly)... of course girls can wear boys clothes more easily than boys wearing girls clothes, but it ended up being a lot of blues and greens, blacks and greys and browns. I guess it's good we had a boy because even in the clothes I dress him in people still ask if he's a girl! Even when I think he looks totally "boy". I think there's a huge void of modern/cool baby clothes for both genders. Pia's outfit is adorable!

[Jussi]

Alison! don't you dare go putting any ribbons or bows on that dear wee head!

[Anne E.]

I had the same problems with people thinking my son is a girl, just because we kept his hair a little longer than most. He could be wearing a totally boy outfit, jeans and a blue tee-shirt with a truck on it and parents at the playground still assumed he’s a girl.