Pink for a girl?

We dress our boys in blue and our girls in pink. Our boys all love a good turn with the buggy and dollies, our girl wouldn't thank you for a car, hammer or garage thank you very much.

I don't see any problems with it, the colour of the clothes doesn't change how we play with them . We love them all equally.

I was so pleased to get a GS as I was dreading the pink bandana with flower sported by so many baby girls, it must be uncomfortable at least. As it is I think the shorts and shirt things on a week old baby look uncomfortable too, I prefer them to look babies for a while, but you can be sure I keep my tongue very firmly between my teeth. My Dinlaw is lovely and we get on very well, no intention of spoiling that.

There’s one famous study showing that women treated the exact same babies differently depending on whether they were dressed in pink or blue. If the clothes were blue they assumed it was a boy, played more physical games with them and encouraged them to play with a squeaky hammer, whereas they would gently soothe the baby dressed in pink and choose a doll for them to play with.

www.bbc.com/future/story/20141117-the-pink-vs-blue-gender-myth

It matters because the blue/pink thing has an effect on the parents and others around the child, causing them to urge the child in stereotypical directions, probably without even realising that is happening.

I can't see much wrong with a harmless bit of gender stereo-typing. Pink, blue, does it matter? They will make up their own minds when they are older about what they what they want to be like.

I found a non pink baby card in local M & S earlier in the year. Finding clothes for baby girls that are not pink is equally difficult, I am sure it was not so split between blue and pink when mine were little 30 plus years ago.

I still have the mail my Mother received from friends and relations when I was born in 1932. Not a card among them but all proper letters, some several pages long, and all in identically tiny envelopes. They make lovely reading, everyone sounds so happy and enthusiastic. One of the most interesting was from my granny to my Dad thanking him for the post card telling her of my birth. No telephone or email or skype for them!

My daughter and son in the 80's very close in age shared non gender specific toys and clothing such as jumpers and T shirts came from the same clothing pile first to get dressed got the one on top of the pile...good job they where similar sizes ....jumble sales where very popular then good quality bargains

Many little boys and girls have 'stereotypical' boys' and girls' interests but not all of them. We should give them the opportunity to develop their own preferences without pushing them in a particular direction.

I only had boys, so a granddaughter came as a novelty. Everything was fine and she was brought up the same as her elder brother - then at 2 she went pink! Unbelievable. Everything had to be pink. She is now 12 and verging on goth with a side interest in vampires and zombies.
It reminded me to some extent of my avowed determination that my sons were not going to play with toy guns. So I never bought them any. Consequently when we went for walks in the woods, they picked up sticks and shot each other with them!
I think what I'm trying to say that there is some outside force that it is very difficult to fight against in the battle of treating children as children and not little boys and little girls.

I really dislike the entrenched use of colour for babies and young children. It is so unimaginative and narrow minded! It seems to be less of an issue in some Scandinavian countries.

I was surprised and pleased though to spot some neutral coloured, organic cotton baby clothes in Lidl this week.

Love this card

I have been trying to buy some baby clothes for my expected Gc , the parents don`t want to know the sex . I have not managed to find anything neutral which is not just white with a teddy or something on the front . I also hate the princess thing , I think it demeans girls and is as if they are silly, frivolous airheads . I would love to buy something in a bold colour as the baby will be dark , but there is nothing .

What on earth has happened? This gender stereotyping is everywhere. I was recently looking at a video of a friend holding her baby in the late 70s. It was not possible to tell the gender of the baby who was snuggly dressed in a navy snow suit with a multicoloured hat. I had to work out that it was her daughter. My son could wear his sister's jumpers and coats as they were gender neutral. But we were into gender equality then.
Is it a good thing that girls are encouraged to be pink princesses these days? I admit I am guilty of this, but don't actually like it. What about boys? I only have granddaughters so I don't know.

grumppa, I thoroughly agree with your description of "colour coding children". Why can't they just be treated as small people? My 2 daughters were.

I agree Lindajane, my DD is 36 & there was never quite as much blue/pink around. My DD was never a "girly girl" & was often dressed in blue (quite often mistaken for a boy when she had short hair). My MiL knit lots for me but would not knit pink until she was born, so I had lots of white, lemon,mint green & blue.

I do get frustrated when buying cards especially age ones as people get older, my only hope is when I find specialised shops

It's the same with clothes they are also covered with little princess twaddle. My granddaughter may want to be an astronaut or an engineer!

Have you tried Ebay? I buy most of my cards on there. I like the Word Art personalised ones, for which you can choose your own set of words and colour palette. there is quite a selection of images.
Word Art baby card

Goose1964. I spent ages looking for gender neutral baby clothes before DD2 found out her bump was a girl. Boots have some lovely baby clothes in mint green. This was the only place I could find this colour at a reasonable price. Primark have some nice stuff in grey and white/brown and white.
Quite agree about toys Lindijane. DGS was about 5 when he was looking through a toy catalogue and the toy he wanted was on a page marked 'toys for girls'. He was most annoyed and put the catalogue in the bin saying it was stupid because he liked playing with that toy lol.

And the two colours don't have the same "value". Blue comes in a huge range of acceptable shades, while pink tends to be either or shocking or just pallid. Red would provide a better gender balance. [N.B. This comment is purely aesthetic; I find the whole colour coding of children ridiculous.]

I find the whole gender bias so sad. I'm sure it wasn't so bad when my girls were small! I was really annoyed when I went into a toy shop recently and one section was pink, filled with dolls etc and the other blue section contained all the action toys. I was delighted the other day though to see my grandson pushing his new pushchair that his other grandma bought. He loves it as well as his kitchen.

Yes I agree with NanandGrampy- I am always asked for blue or pink cards. I made some lovely lemon & jade green ones with little hedgehogs on them- really sweet & they didn't sell at all. Did same design in blue & pink & they sold like hot cakes.
Supply & demand

Not just cards, it's the same for clothes, DD is haveing another boy but if you want anything other than powder blue be prepared to pay through the nose

johnlewis.com have a good selection of 'different' baby cards!

My children are now 33 and 38. When they were born I got dozens of cards, nearly all with cute pink babies on them. As my kids are Anglo-Barbadian none of the babies looked remotely like them.
Now its the pink for girls, blue for boys rubbish.
You can get good cards from Oxfam and a few other places but there's a real gap in the market for more gender neutral and racially diverse cards.