Thinks in 3rd Person

Team Pink vs. Team Blue

I recently joined a Mommy Message Board (MMB).  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept, it’s a place where pregnant women (and their partners!) can go to empathize, sympathize, and generally commiserate on the miseries and victories of gestation.  Despite the fact that at least 3 close friends are simultaneously experiencing the same joys (give or take a few weeks) and many of my friends have joined the Mommy Club over the past couple of years, I sometimes find it easier (read:lazy) to log on and expound in relative anonymity.

In the past few weeks, a question came up about gender prediction and whether we’d be finding out the gender sex (my diatribe on inaccurately using those words interchangeably is for another time).

Lots of responses based on old wives tales:

• I’ve been really sick this trimester so I think it’s a girl
• I’m super horny all the time so it must be a boy
• I crave chocolate, so it must be a girl

Plus, plenty of “gut feelings”, all of which are basically equally valid.

If anyone has a preference (“I’d rather have a…”), they’re not stating it.  Most people are firmly vocal about wanting a healthy baby.  For those who are guessing or revaling, what they are stating is something that I find to be baffling, and a little perturbing: “We’re on Team Blue!” or “We’re guessing Team Pink!”

This was especially striking when I read today that someone’s relative told them they were probably having a girl (based on…?) but that she pictured the nursery being blue.  I failed to see the disconnect.

Some background: Way back at the turn of the century, I took a Women’s Studies class for my undergrad.  It was just one intro course, but it made me realize a lot.  One thing I realized is that this girl=pink/boy=blue dichotomy is relatively new in historical terms.  Until the middle part of the last century (admittedly not sure of the exact time frame), the opposite was true.  That’s because, as pink is derived from red, it’s a colour of aggression and boys are obviously naturally aggressive, right?

I’m all about understanding some of the reasons why people want to know the sex of their child before it’s born.  It helps when picking out a name, for instance.  Admittedly, one of the major reasons I’m choosing not to find out is because it costs about $300 where I live.  In my jurisdiction, you get one ultrasound (provided you’re not high-risk) and they won’t reveal the gender.  If you want to know, you have to go to a private clinic.  Rationale: it often takes extra time (time=money) and people can get REALLY ANGRY if a mistake is made.  I’m operating under the so-few-real-surprises-in-life/I-just-want-a healthy-baby stance.

PLUS…

I kinda get annoyed when people gender their child.  When my sister-in-law found out she was having a girl last year, the response from everyone was “Now I can buy pink!”  When I went to a friend’s baby shower last winter (for a boy) everything was in shades of blue (except for my red and green gifts — babies see bold colour contrasts long before the pastels we typically surround them in).

But my favourite colour is blue.  Sure, my mom tells me, for a while when I was younger I would wear nothing but pink, but not because they didn’t provide me with colour options.  I’ve been “Team Blue” since I hit puberty.  So far, that hasn’t impeded my ability to meet and marry a like-minded life partner, buy property, or conceive.  Yet people all over insist that certain colours and toys are gender-specific.

It’s that lack of choice in clothing/toys that bugs me.  Coupled with the idea that is still floating around that some colours/toys are going to make the baby a “sissy” or a “wuss” or — GASP — “gay”: all thinly-veiled, derogatory terms meant to reinforce that males embody superior traits and that anything feminine is going to ruin your boy.  Or WORSE: your little girl is going to be “butch” or a “tom-boy” and therefore incapable of finding the right kind of love when she grows up.

As if.

Where is the study proving that proximity to certain colours/toys makes a person grow up to be homosexual?  So many people seem convinced of its inherent truth that there must be empirical evidence of it somewhere.

The truth is that between marketing and a disconnect from inter-generational families, we see having babies and children as a grown-up version of dolls that we get to dress up.  Is it stylish?  Is it cute?  Can people tell that my child is going to be a right-wing defence-man or prima ballerina from 50 paces?  Phew!  Fashion assignment aced!

At the same time, of course my cousin and his wife absolutely have the right to decide that they’re going to have a cotton-candy nursery for their daughter (due any day!), but I hope they can look past their own expectations of what they want her to need/like to see the truth in her and her preferences, so that the day she decides that she’s only wearing shades of black — from midnight to charcoal — they don’t think she was replaced by a pod-person in the night.

In MMB land, the code for those of us choosing not to learn/reveal our fetus’ sex is “Team Green”.  (It’s a strange compromise to me.  After all, doesn’t pink + blue = lavender?)  I’ll stay on Team Green for the time being, but quite frankly, if someone gives my kid a pink blanket or blue mittens, I’ll just say “Thank you” in appreciation for one less thing I have to pay for myself.

And, chances are, the nursery walls will be yellow.