In the Pink

Here's what happens: You find yourself pregnant. You jump for joy (or sigh with ambivalence) at the enormity of it all. You tell a bunch of people (waiting 3 months is impossible). They are thrilled (or tell you cheerful horror stories about everything from stretch marks to never sleeping again). They ask you if you're going to find out the sex of the baby. You don't know. You and your partner (and your best friend and your mother and your partner's mother and the woman in the cubicle down the hall) have different opinions about what to do. On the one hand, wouldn't it be easier to know "for planning purposes"; on the other, aren't you going to need some kind of big ass surprise to undercut the pain of childbirth?

You opt to be surprised. You're old school that way.

As the months march on, everyone has an opinion about what kind of baby you're having. Your mother is sure it's a boy. The woman in the cubicle just knows it's a girl because she's had 3 and her sister-in-law had 2 boys and she was right guessing every time. You don't know what to do. Baby Gap has cute stuff in green and yellow but, let's face it, they're cop-out colours. What's it gonna be, pink or blue. (In truth, you'll happily dress your little boy in green or yellow but who are you kidding, the girl's going home in pink.)

The big day comes. Actually, it's 3 o'clock in the morning, but who's counting. The baby is born and...

... it's a GIRL!

And now the fun begins. Not the love and the gratitude and the planning for the future. You know I mean the dress up. And fortunately, between vomit and 24 hour shifts, you get to do it all the time! But every little ruffly, candy-pink sleeper is cuter than the last.

The infant becomes a toddler who tantrums at the idea of wearing anything vaguely approaching gender-neutral. Fortunately she looks great in pink. Who doesn't, really? It brings out the roses in your cheeks. The toddler becomes a pre-schooler who will only wear pink or she's not leaving the house - just because. Pre-school gives way to the liberty of full day education - and peer pressure. Now pink is de rigeur because everyone else is wearing it. Eventually, pink is great because it's the colour of the background of the latest tween sensation's homepage.

You see where I'm going with this - my treatise on the inculturation of sexism from the get-go - unwavering feminism be damned. Barbies may be evil, but good luck pushing orange when you positively can't stand one more iteration of fuchsia.

So I guess I should be grateful that my kid will only wear purple this fall. I could handle a little novelty.