It's only after I came to the US did I find out how seriously parents took the blue and the pink tradition. How can you possibly make a boy wear pink and likewise? Well, pink actually is quite a ‘girlie’ color- I don’t recall my brothers wearing anything remotely pink growing up. But blue – what’s wrong with it? It could be a color suitable for girls. Quite evident in some blue colored outfits avaliable nowadays.
Nevertheless, people here strongly follow the tradition which is not only limited to clothes but a lot of other things including the room paint, curtains, bedding etc.
And somewhere along the way, I became a victim of it.
A has this “princessey” winter coat, all pink with a Disney Princess logo on the back and a pink tiara on the front. The one and only she possess and it fits her well considering how petite she is. We put it on her every time she steps out of the house. Last night, while we were out, she dirtied it by rubbing her lollipop stained hands in it (yes, a lollipop- a 14 month old feasting on a lollipop!). By the time we got home, her coat was no longer just pink but had shades of blue (blue berry flavored lollipop) and smudges all over it. Quite a pretty sight, I must say.
Hence this morning as we were getting her ready to take her over to her grandparents, I realized that we couldn't possible make her wear the same dirty coat. So off I went to rummage D’s closet and saw two of his old coats neatly hanging in it. One is red with a snowman applique on its back and the other is a combination of light and dark blue – simple, without any frills. Being the person who now prefers to follow norms and stick to convention, at least when it comes to my kids, I pulled out the red (unisex color!) without even giving it a second thought.
As soon as hubby dear put it on her, we both cracked up laughing. Not only was it bulky and big for her, she looked like a buffed up little midget in it. And we could tell she had difficulty walking around with all that weight on her.
So I looked at hubby dear perplexed and said,
What should we do? She doesn’t have any other.
Why? What happened to D’s other old coat?
That’s blue!!
So what?
She is a girl! And more over she will look like a boy. (having very little hair doesn’t help at all!)
Oh, come one give me a break! What’s with the blue and pink? It is just a coat, in good condition and quite wearable. Blue and pink, please! (coming from someone who has lived in this country since he was 5 years old! Sometimes, I think I am more ‘Umrican’ than he is!)
I need to get another coat.
What- a pink one?
May be not pink but something pretty
You are not going to buy her another-when there is one that she can totally wear.
I gave it some thought and realized, yes, what the heck? A coat is a coat. Whether it is blue or pink! And besides, what is the point of buying and spending on a new one when she can wear one of the hand-me-downs? It is all about practicality and cutting back unnecessary spending. If I were in India now, this would not have been an issue.
If people look at her weirdly or mistake her for a boy (which has happened a few times despite dressed in pink!) – so what?
Big deal! The world will not come to an end- we will still continue to live and quite happily at that.
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