Once you’ve entered the parent club, your life will never be the same. You will deal with many new things, including opinions, opinions and more opinions from total strangers.
Take for instance the soccer mum that stares you down at 9.30 in the morning. She lives in a perfect house with her perfect husband and when she rocks up at the playground in what looks like a small house, she looks effortlessly perfect and Rubi-Raven and Bradley-Jaxon are sporting en vogue kid’s couture. While Bradley-Jaxon, let’s call him Brat, resembles a little lawyer, Rubi-Raven is pretty in pink from head to toe and looks like she is ready to compete for Toddlers and Tiaras.
Don’t get me wrong. If this is your choice, go for it. What doesn’t sparkle with me is that you’re looking at me as if I was a crazy person for not turning my kid into a princess apprentice. The rainbow has many colors. Why do I need to turn my daughter into a pinkfest? Disapproval is written all over your face and I am feeling a little like in high school and somewhat underdressed. Why is it that “my kid, my rules” applies to you but not to me?
Little one is not pink-deprived. Don’t worry, presents make up for that. I admit that little girls look adorable in light pink but also in white and yellow and turquois and … Anything with ears gets me close to a cute meltdown. All I’m trying to say is that it does not need to be limited to pink and I’ll stick to that. Children should be given a choice.
Gender is to a great deal constructed, and if you just started smiling at me, I bet you say a baby girl is “cute” and a baby boy is “handsome”… Our daughter loves animals on her outfits and I usually find those in the boys section. Look past all the pink stuff for girls and you are left with licensed apparel (very likely Disney), replacement pink (purple) and some t-shirts with cool slogans like “Daddy’s little princess” or “hot stuff”. A lot of the time she looks a bit Kelly Family but I thought we’re doing alright. The other day someone called her a boy. She wore a grey hoodie with owls on it and a blue and red vest (none of which I have purchased myself). Ever since she’s been asking if she was a girl. Don’t confuse my child.
Once upon a time (at the turn of last Century), blue was considered a weak, and therefore a girl color. Boys on the other hand were likely to be dressed in pink. Somewhat “little red”, it was considered to be a strong color.
For all the mums on the playgrounds out there, please be nice to each other.
(Apologies for all those inverted commas.)
Thank you for stopping by mine and reading Willie’s story. It’s so wonderful that you’re giving your daughter a choice in her wants 🙂
Well, I think I do. I hope I do… This stuck with me. I will post a conclusion to this next week. Have a great weekend
It’s difficult. We need our daughters to aspire to be engineers!!
I couldn’t agree more!
People can be strange. It’s not just the color and style of clothes, but competition in who is smarter, prettier, who has more toys ( kids and adults alike). Our family never conformed to arbitrary societal rules. We encouraged our kids to think for themselves and to always ask questions. Despite it being challenging many times, I have no regrets and would do it again. We also homeschooled, which made us even greater odd-balls. We did however, talk about these issues over dinner, trying to explain how every family has to do what is right for them and how ideally everyone would respect the others choices.
We tended to gravitate towards friends who shared our values and accepted us for the people we were, not the sparkling exteriors.
Sad, to be that shallow and put appearance before content!
Thank you. I couldn’t agree with you more. At least we do have the freedom to pick our friends and make some lifestyle choices.
I’m sure you’ve seen all sorts, deciding to homeschool…. Do you think your children had the feeling they missed out on things?
Our kids always had the option of going to school. They did try it briefly, but didn’t want to go on with it. We belonged to a couple of homeschool groups, where kids and parents socialized, I organized field trips for the entire group for many years and we had mostly a good time. There were, however, days where I wished I could send them to school! 😊 Overall though, we’ve talked about it as a family many times and agree that what we did, and how we did it was exactly right for our family. It’s hard to sometimes swim against the current, but if it is what you feel is right for you and your family, go for it. Communicate, be flexible and have fun!
Sometimes my very thin and lanky son gets better pants from the toddler girl section, not going to lie. We get asked, when his hair grows a little past his ears, if he’s a girl. He’s pretty, not handsome. He’s too little right now, you know? They ask this when he’s wearing blue all over too. This world is full of nutty folks 🙂 you just keep being true to you and yours and next time look at soccer mom like she’s the nutty one!
Thanks for sharing this. You’re right! No more bullying from soccer mums
Yes we are all doing what we can!