With my first baby, my daughter, there were so many fun colors and clothing choices. With girls, including different options is important. It seems like girls' clothing is so much more inclusive. This is not just in colors, but animals as well. All colors and animals are appropriate for girls. We would never presume to tell girls that blue is for boys or that they can't wear a shirt with a dinosaur. I delighted in all the options, it felt like my girl had an outfit to match every one of her moods.
When I had a boy, the choices became severely limited. There were some fun options, but most of the colors were gray, blue, or hunter green. The animals? All dinos, dogs, and a few bears. There were no unicorns or mermaids, heck, there were barely any dragons. Frankly, "boy clothes" can be so … boring.
What's funny is how much colors have changed over time.
Pink actually used to be a boy color, and blue was a girl color about 100 years ago. Pink was linked to red and considered masculine, while blue was deemed to be feminine. Around World War II, the colors were switched and began being marketed that way. It had stuck for a long time. Fashion comes and goes so quickly, so putting that much emphasis on colors doesn't really make sense.
Now that my son is 2 years old, he tries harder to imitate his sister.
She's the one who he looks up to, so when she outgrew her pink socks and purple pajamas and gave them to him, who was I to say no? Why would I? Just because they weren't "traditional" boy colors? He also inherited some neon green socks from her that he loves. Anything from his sister he sees as special. His eyes light up when she gives him something and she enjoys this exchange as well.
Handing down clothing from one child to the next, regardless of gender, is economical and eco-friendly.
I’m not saying that everything his older sister wears works for him, but some of it is totally fine. If he wants to wear pink socks, who cares? He's 2 years old. I don't think it is a big deal. I'm not going to give him her old dresses or skirts, but owl pajamas or fun shirts, so what? I don't see a reason for him to routinely wear skirts since he has plenty of other clothes. But when he wants to play dress up with his sister, all of that stuff is fair game.
Even though I bought him "boy" socks, he still wants to wear the pink ones.
He doesn't care about the aliens on his new pair, he just wants his favorite socks. You need to pick your battles with 2-year-olds, and the color of their socks is not a worthwhile one. It is not worth the fight, and if you think about it, the fight doesn't even make sense. I bought him socks in a pack with every color, so he can choose what he wants and have more options.
Do I worry about his color choices? No.
Or that he tells me his favorite color is pink? No. Sometimes it's purple or green. Sometimes he wears green socks. Sometimes he wears dinosaurs. He should get the freedom to choose what he likes without bias getting in the way. His personality is his own and I love that he gets to be himself without society's preferences getting in the way. I want him to know his options are just as limitless as his sister's.
