re. all pink

["Nancy Whittier" <nwhittie email smith edu>]

I agree with you, and your friend, about giving kids choices, even if
they choose pink dresses (I think...).  

What makes me mad is when the same proponents of choice don't let their
sons choose pink, or dresses, or don't offer their girls varied choices.
 Then they point to their children's "choices" as evidence of biological
difference.

I have so many friends who say that they used to believe that gender was
not innate, until they had their kids, who just (a) had so much "boy
energy" (if I hear that phrase again I'm going to barf) or (b) always
wanted to wear pink dresses, even though they didn't encourage them.

Nancy

>>> Judy Anderson <yduj CS Stanford EDU> 01/20/04 9:33 AM >>>
A friend of ours with two girls, 4 and 6, was visiting last weekend.
The girls were dressed in identical pink dresses.  But the mother says
it's their choice.  She tries to get them to dress in other colors,
but she knows that as long as there's something pink that's clean
that's what they'll have on for school/daycare.  Otherwise there's a
fight!  The mother is more feminine in dress than I am, but she says
her girls are much more so than she is.  

We'll see what happens when our kids go to preschool, I guess!
They're too young to express much opinion on dress, tho sometimes when
Jocelyn's fussing about clothes I offer her a choice.  But mostly she
picks one thing, then when I start to put it on her, fusses again and
points to a different one of the choices.  This goes back and forth
for a while until I give up and say "last choice" and cram her into
the clothes fussing.  Sometime I wonder why I bother.  But probably it
really is the right thing.