Pink

Holy crap. I've done what I always said (with some forcefulness) I would never do. I dressed my baby girl in pink, from head to toe. Pink onesie, pink bonnet, pink flowered blanket, pink binkie. Me, the woman who thinks black is the new black, worries about whether my blacks match and thinks that jeans are formal wear. This is not good, she's only 8 weeks old and already I'm programming her to be a girly-girl.

But how can I resist? she's already pink from head to toe, thanks to genetics and the fact that she hasn't started tanning yet (and I imagine her generation won't go in for baby oil and tin foil the way mine did) and she's just so damn cute when her outfit matches her skintone. The question is, how do I reconcile this with my screaming feminist wanna-raise-a-kid-without-gender-specific-language self? I don't want her to aspire to be a Disney princess, and while I suppose I'll have to let her take ballet classes I'm quietly praying she'll be more into basketball.

I never want her to second-guess her strength and power because of her gender. I hope she never submits to the low self-esteem that her mom went through when all her friends got boobs and she continued to be perfectly comfortable running around braless (hell, just now her mom is dreaming of going back to her pre-pregnancy body so that braless can once again become a way of life, or at least of sleeping!) I pray my daughter wholeheartedly believes that comfort is more important than fashion, at least as far as shoes are concerned. That being a tough, smart, strong woman is the only way to be, and that anyone that suggests otherwise is living in the 50s and should be ignored.

Am I undermining her ability to charge ahead and take control of her life by dressing her in pink? I guess as long as some days she's in band t-shirts and sports gear, she'll find her own balance.