P is for Pink

Honestly, I don’t know what to make of the whole girly-girl pink thing. Sometimes I want to rail against it, like when I see perfectly cromulent, non-gendered toys available in a pink version specifically for girls – pink T-ball, pink Legos, pink school busses for crying out loud! As if girls can’t get their weak little girl-heads around sports or building or school unless they’re pink. Lame.

The whole dress-up thing used to spook me a little bit too, I’ll admit. And not just because of the head lice risk. There was an awful lot of “bride” play going on at The Boy’s co-op preschool a few years ago. Lots of little veil-wearing girls trying to pry the boys away from their blocks to “marry” them. The teacher, to her credit, replaced the frillier dress-up clothes with more generic hand-me downs that didn’t dictate the play so much. But the most determined little girls just draped old T-shirts over their heads and kept on bride’ing it up bride style.

Still, I never wanted to be one of those parents who does a lot of hand-wringing over pop culture. I always told myself I’d let my kids explore the pink-and-blue extremes of gendered play if they chose to. I didn’t want to censor it. But I didn’t want to be the one to introduce it, either.

Sure enough, The Boy collided hard with the world of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Bionicles at age four – thanks in no small part to Lego’s insidious branding and peer-to-peer marketing. No harm done, though, as far as I can tell. There’s a lot of imagination and exercise going on when he and his friends get together. They negotiate; they interpret the text; they write, direct, and act. And they run. A lot. Girls who want to play are typically included.

I have to admit, there’s a part of me that loves watching Little Girl run around with her brother and his big-kid friends. Yes, most of the time they cast her as Princess Leia. But there’s nothing “princess” about the way she held her own with those boys on the playground all last summer.

I’m not sure when she started to drift pinkward. But somewhere along the line, her love for kitties became adoration of Hello Kitty. Her love for the Toy Story movies became an outright fascination with Bo Peep (Bo Peep! Who has, like, ten lines in the whole movie!) And last night, after more than a year of tearfully refusing to wear anything but Gymboree leggings and shirts, she asked if she could wear a dress.

The only dresses in her closet are from last year, but she didn’t mind. The minute that dress was on, she took off running back and forth across the living room, pausing only to gaze at her reflection in the windows. She was twirling, laughing, asking us all to look at her, and joyfully shouting “I can’t wait to show my friends! I can’t wait to show my teacher!”

And so it begins.

She’s only three, but I’m already feeling out of my league. I’m a ripped-jeans / glasses-wearing mom who hasn’t worn make-up since my wedding (and before that, probably not since college). Now, all of a sudden, we’re facing ensembles. She’ll need tights. Maybe a pair of non-sneaker shoes. And it’s probably just a matter of time before barrettes and accessories become involved. How am I going to do this?

When I’m really honest with myself, I have to admit that my own discomfort with the girly-girl world is simply protective. There’s going to come a time when my girl won’t be thin enough, blonde enough, rich enough, or vapid enough to meet the princess paradigm. On some level, I suppose I’m hoping she rejects Princess before Princess rejects her.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. There’s a lot of fun and imagination to be had in the world of Pink. It doesn’t have to be limited to girls, and it doesn’t have to be about a beauty standard. Instead of holding her back, perhaps it’s better to Take Back the Princess and let her enjoy girly-girlness on her own terms: with the raucous joy of a small child.



All I can say is, thank Zod for the likes of Jane O’Connor’s Fancy Nancy, Ian Falconer’s Olivia, and Sesame Street’s Zoe – a new generation of realistic girly-girls who actually look like little girls instead of pageant contestants. Their outfits can be fabulously unmatching. They scrape their knees and have bad moods. They’re smart! Precocious and enterprising, even. Fancy Nancy prides herself on using big words. Olivia is a refreshing version of the “bossy girl” character; a loveable, sympathetic reimagining of The Peanuts’ Lucy.

And, best of all (for me), Fancy Nancy has a plain mom. Seriously, check out this mom character:



No apron, no pearls, no Family-Circus hairstyle. It’s like she’s human or something. I love it! (Incidentally, The Boy loves these books as much as his sister does.)

I think my favorite thing about Fancy Nancy in particular is how the series lets us embrace “beauty as process.” Nancy takes such pure joy in the act of adorning herself. She doesn’t look like a Disney princess or a Jon Benet wannabe; she looks like a feisty little girl in mismatched dress-up clothes having the time of her life. She’s glamorous because she believes she is glamorous. And it works. Glamour doesn’t have to be about dieting and brushing all the tangles out of your hair. Glamour can be downright fun.

Conventional parenting wisdom says we’re not supposed to compliment our girls on their appearance. We’re not supposed to use the word “beautiful” for fear they’ll come to rely on it or believe that beauty is the only route to parental approval. It made sense to me at first, and I try to abide by that principle.

But recently, I was writing about my grandmother on my personal blog and these sentences just tumbled out:

“She lavished praise on us, just like the parenting books tell you you’re not supposed to do. But I loved it. I don’t ever remember anyone else but her calling me ‘beautiful’ and ‘stunning’ until years later when I started having boyfriends.”

Whoa. If the boyfriends are the only ones who can call a girl “beautiful,” well, then . . . follow that to its logical conclusion. Maybe hearing “beautiful” from a parent now and then isn’t such a bad idea after all. As long as that’s not the only positive feedback they get from us, I really don’t see the harm.

Besides, “You look beautiful” is so nice to hear once in a while, isn’t it? Especially when you’re as beautiful as this!