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.
I agree that it's mainly a hair thing! I did very little pink with my girls (lord help us), and bald little Ana was often mistaken for a boy, even if the clue was a dress, but Bella with her curls rarely was.
And bottom line-- dress her in what makes her comfy, and you delighted to see her in it.
Posted by: Luckybeans | December 16, 2006 at 07:00 PM
Alice gets called a boy ALL THE TIME, mostly at the supermarket! I have stopped caring now. I dress her in green,red and white mostly but she wears denim jeans. Mind you, the jeans have a frill on the bottom but no-one seems to spot that. I agree that it's mostly because of the lack of hair, so we mostly get 'What a pretty little boy!' Because she is pretty but she's most definitely a wee girl.
Posted by: Kirsty | December 17, 2006 at 01:16 AM
eek- I didn't realise that it was so ingrained that we looked to the colour the baby is dressed in to identify it's sex... Scary and hard to escape from. And clearly Max isn't helping with his into technique!
.. but I know you'll find a way around it :)
Posted by: di | December 17, 2006 at 08:46 AM
Ack - my pet peeve of the moment! I recently put together an Etsy treasury list of baby stuff in orange, purple and green, because I'm so over the pink-girl/blue-boy decree. My daughter is 6 months old, and I've (mostly) given up correcting well-meaning strangers at the supermarket - I let my son take care of that, when he's asked how old his brother is, he is quick to correct with "she's a SISTER"! I have nothing against pink really - in moderation, any shade of pink can be lovely... but I really dislike having 'no choice' in the matter, so I avoid it on principle. And yes, she's bald too... but I adore bald babies :) Pia is lovely, and I love seeing what you dress her in
Posted by: Melanie | December 17, 2006 at 03:29 PM
good luck with the patterns, i'm literally on the edge of my seat with excitement to see what you come up with!
Posted by: leslie | December 17, 2006 at 07:29 PM
I was having a similar conversation with Melissa over at www.allbuttonedup.typepad.com. She's made a great quilt for her boy, but it's not in boy colours, and I love it. Gender specific colours are the root of all boringness. If I dressed Miles (8months) every day in blue I think I would disown him. He loves red (who doesn't love red?) orange, green, yellow. I get heaps of comments on his clothes, mainly because they are not blue. i say long live OTHER colours. Very excited your rallying against pink bluddy pink.
Posted by: littlecookies | December 17, 2006 at 07:37 PM
Welcome to the precarious world of shopping for clothes for girls! It only gets worse. Currently trying to find a pair of all cotton pj's that don't have bratz or barbie plastered on them in the form of a plastic transfer and a pair of jeans for a 6 y.o. that don't put her builder's crack on display. But then again, this afternoon I tried clothes shopping for myself. It doesn't seem to get any easier. Although I do rather fancy myself in a hot pink velour bratz trackie ....
Posted by: Jo | December 17, 2006 at 08:46 PM
I hate clothes shopping for anyone. (And luckily don't have to do much of it).
Until her hair was halfway down her back (3-4) my daughter still got called a boy half the time. Now her two-year-old brother (short hair and all) gets called a girl (though he often corrects people himself). Is it the hand-me-downs that seem gender-neutral to me? Have they retained some a-girl-wore-this-first-aura? My favorite stranger comment from the last week (addressed to the boy himself): "Oh, but you're too pretty to be a boy." What the hell???!
How about purple?
Posted by: alice | December 17, 2006 at 10:59 PM
That seems easier here in Spain, where girls get their ears pierced right after they are born. So its usually easy to tell whether it is a girl... Of course there's loads of sugar pink baby clothes around nevertheless. Actually I wouldn't like either for my baby girl, and rather go with "cute boy" comments, I think. Good luck for your sewing!
Posted by: Amelie | December 18, 2006 at 04:08 AM
I love what you're talking about here. It's really interesting to think about gender signifiers, esp. in young children, and how they form us and our own identities and perceptions.
Also, I lovvve the Toast Shirt!
Posted by: eireann | December 18, 2006 at 10:49 AM
I feel your pain. I declared no pink, on pain of death, to all and sundry. Since we didn't know her gender before she was born and she has an older brother, there was lots of navy, red, white, green and generally funky stuff. Things went well. And then it slowly dawned on me: we had a little girl with china blue eyes, dark blonde hair falling in ringlets who looks utterly gorgeous in pink. So, I occasionally allow pink and go with blues, lavender, and purple.
Posted by: Iona | December 18, 2006 at 11:32 AM
i can't wait to have a girl, hopefully...sigh, someday. my max asks me all the time "can i have another person?"
haw. <3. pia is a doll!
Posted by: jenny vorwaller | December 18, 2006 at 01:05 PM
I can understand your frustration. We've done A LOT of pink shopping and now I don't want to dress her in only pink. But you can't really go wrong I suppose...people expect your pretty little girl to have lace and ribbons and PINK...lots of pink! Good luck on your search for some perfect girly clothes that aren't too girly! :)
Posted by: aj | December 18, 2006 at 05:00 PM
I shouldn't worry about trying to make Pia at least look more feminine so people will recognise she's a girl. My mum remembers rather fondly a moment when I was about Pia's age when a very old gentleman stopped us in the street and told her what a handsome baby boy she had. I was wearing a pink pinafore dress and a little handknitted pink and yellow bonnet at the time.
Some people need the neon sign, other people grow up to ignore it. Keep up the stripey orange pants!!
Posted by: Emmms | December 19, 2006 at 07:25 AM
I make and sell little baby tops just because of this problem. I hate over the top frilly but these are simple and stylish and they make sense. I hope you check them out, www.melimade.com
Posted by: meli | December 19, 2006 at 09:43 AM
I can just imagine what's going to happen in three years time when all she'll wear is a Barbie T-Shirt and clear rubber sandals with glitter through them (you know what I'm talking about ;))....
Posted by: Bel | December 19, 2006 at 10:46 AM
yes--pink...i got as gifts and so i dress my baby in pink. i don't understand why people will ask if the baby is a boy or girl when she is dressed in pink! i don't get that one.
the other day i went to the mall. ava was wearing her brother's striped white & blue knit outfit--very cute but people would assume she was a boy--so what did i do? i dressed her up in a "mint" green sweater with a girly bunny on it!
Posted by: joyce | December 19, 2006 at 05:35 PM
My eldest boy is real boy. scuffed shoes, the scowl, always a mess, but he has long blond hair, tied back. He always gets called a girl (i've got a big p . . was how he used to correct people at the age of 2) while my daughter, same hair usually hidden under a hat, wearing clothing she has pinched from his wardrobe as she prefers superheroes over barbie, always gets referred to as a girl even when she looks the spit of big brother. She also refuses to wear pink, a thin stripe is fine, but a solid block of colour, no way.
After realising that none of my close friends dress their girls in bubblegum pink i've come to the conclusion that it's just better not to mix with women who do. there are the pinks and the nonpinks. Relationships between the two don't work. The theory was proven with the daughter going into kindy, I steered her past the girls in pink and now my daughter has a wonderful group of gals and I've meet some brilliant women.
Posted by: jen | December 19, 2006 at 08:40 PM
Even when I dress my two month old daughter in pink, I still get questions whether she's a girl or boy!
Btw, I recently became a fan of yours and have been inspired to also sew some clothes for my baby. Do you have any favourite sites to go to where you get your patterns?
Posted by: Joan | December 20, 2006 at 02:45 AM
Even when Sadie was in pink, even when she had more hair than most babies, even with the girliest eyelashes I could imagine...she was called a boy.
You never win. Pink is just trouble.
Posted by: samlamb | December 20, 2006 at 01:29 PM
I am not a pink person (well, actually, I am, but I don't like to wear it.) I have recently brought myself to concede dusky pinks have a place in my decor, and I can live with coral. But I was forever put off of pastel or hot pink by a colleague who claimed pink as 'her colour', who looked like a living barbie without the bust, and would sometimes come to work wearing several shades of the wretched colour.
Why, people, why?
Personally, my favourite colour is blue.
Posted by: Kate | December 20, 2006 at 03:38 PM
I have a 7 month old girl and I totally agree! I seriously think there is a gap in the market (in Australia at least) for reasonably priced baby girls clothing with a little edge and sophistication. Nor can you find decent patterns for this age group - you have to totally redraft to get modern shapes. I do however, find your photos totally inspiring and really love your choice of fabrics and styles.
Posted by: Lisa | December 20, 2006 at 04:23 PM
De-lurking to say that Pia looks lovely in that outfit, those pants are so great! The baby girl's-clothing-issue is big on my mind too. My daughter is 20 months and always get the 'what a lovely little boy' remarks. I've made nearly all her clothes, and they're mostly green and brown. I sell baby and toddler clothes at our local craft market, and (nearly) everything is in gender-neutral colours, but I still get a lot of people (mostly older, actually) coming up and asking if I have anything suitable for a little GIRL. It's really something I find fascinating, and after lots of in-depth discussions with my partner, we concluded that the whole issue might have something to do with homophobia. Why should we care that babies are so strongly associated with a gender? We get enough of that for the rest of our lives, it seems a shame to start it so young.
Lovely blog, by the way!
Posted by: melissa | December 20, 2006 at 05:14 PM
I tried to avoid it too with my #2 child who is a girl. She is now 2 and a half and wears the occasional pink, but I ususally try to match it with red, blue or brown. And I just love her in greens. It is unavoidable I'm afraid.
Posted by: tiel | December 21, 2006 at 04:59 PM
I HATED pink in all forms ... until I was pregnant. But I still don't do lace, bows, frilliness, etc. However, I found that even if I dressed my daughter in pink and purple, people would still think she was a boy. Sometimes it IS hard to tell a baby's gender if you don't know. I always saw lots of edgier things I would have loved, but were usually out of my price range.
I LOVE the toast shirt!
Posted by: Leta | December 22, 2006 at 09:03 AM