No matter how we try to eradicate it it still remains that society primarily views females aesthetically and judges them upon looks so it's no surprise that many young girls question their validity in society due to not fitting the mythical airbrushed norm.

There is nothing worn with telling your daughter that she is pretty.  She is and it's important for her to believe this, however, should her self esteem wander off and she's used to primarily being complimented on physicality she needs to have re-enforced that physicality is just one part of an amazing whole.

Never forget to tell her that she's also brave, strong, quick, witty, agile, creative, intelligent, empathic etc.  That she has many many qualities that make her so perfectly her.  It's also important to emphasise how they make you and others feel, such as loved, proud, happy.  To know that she can positively effect people because of who she is and not what she looks like.

It's natural to compliment how a person looks, it's an instant feel good buzz if someone compliments you.  However, think about what part of her you're aiming to compliment.

For instance, if your child is looking particularly slim, in a healthy way:

Don't  say: 'wow look at you skinny minnie!' even if you're saying it with affection or even with well intended humour, you're essentially sending the message that she is only looking good because she's slim and that she must stay that way, re-enforcing the illusion that to be beautiful you have to be slim.

Instead: Focus on the overall thing she is exuding such as 'you're looking really healthy' or 'you're glowing lately!' This suggests that she as a whole is looking well and happy focusing on the person not the body.

Maybe your older child is experimenting with make-up and despite your better judgement it actually really suits her.

Don't say: 'Is that new make-up? it makes you look stunning' This is suggesting that it is only the make-up that makes her beautiful and that she must therefore need it to be beautiful.

Instead: focus on something particular such as 'I really like that colour lipstick on you' or 'you have such pretty eyes, that colour eye-shadow works well with them' in these examples you complimenting the product yet not insinuating she looks better for wearing it and in the latter example you're placing the emphasis on her eyes, not the eye-shadow.  This way you're sending a message that she improves the make-up not vice versa and that make-up can be fun and interesting yet it's not needed, it doesn't improve her as she's already enough without it.

Never reprimand a girl for not being girly enough or insinuate that she can't do nor be something because she's female.  Never make her feel like she should be doing something or liking something purely because she's a girl.  She is a person, not a gender.  Likewise, never try and purposefully de-feminise her, do not use or mould her to make your own point against gender roles and stereotypes. Both are forms of oppression, despite your liberalising intentions.  In both instances you're impressing upon her what she should and shouldn't be.

A friend just said to me 'when a little girl tells me she is a princess - I always say - 'what is your special power princess'? and they never struggle to tell me ' which I find incredibly empowering.

Despite being close to My Mother, I never truly feel able to confide in her though to be honest I don't confide in anyone as a rule of thumb.  I don't ever remember her explaining periods or sex to me, I just pieced things together from stuff I'd heard and read.  She never knew about my disordered eating nor self harm.  Even now, she has absolutely no idea that I'm on long term medication for depression nor that I've been referred.  I didn't tell her when a few years ago I had a tiny lump on my breast nor when my periods were so erratic with spotting that I feared the worst.  If I argue with The Husband, I never talk to her about it.  Don't get me wrong, It's not her fault.  Not at all.  However, I want Thing Two to feel she can come to me.  I want to be open from the start.  I want to be the one who makes her feel better.  The one who helps her untangle the confusion.  The one who offers the explanations and possible answers to her questions.  I never, ever want her to be as insulated as me, because it's not healthy and even now, I'd sell my soul to feel able to talk, really talk to someone.

I never want to make her feel fat or ugly or not enough.  I never want to make her feel selfish, ungrateful or a burden.

Through relationships both social and romantic, even when her wings have fully grown I want her to feel like should she need me, I'll always be her home.  Should it be to celebrate or commiserate, even if she chooses not to come to me, I'd like her still to feel that she could if she wanted or needed to.

I'll admit, it can be impossible to get her to explain what's upset her at times and I'd be lying if I said this didn't worry me.  Bottling things up isn't healthy nor helpful.  I just have to trust her that if it was something significant enough to need help, she'd tell me.

I want her to believe she can be anything and do anything.

So through honesty and respect and being careful with how we express what we mean I hope that no matter how much life tries to turn her into rubble, that she believes she is a sky scraper.

Does Pink Stink?

Just curious really but what do people think about the 'Pink Stinks' campaign?

"Parents are being urged to boycott shops selling pink toys and gifts by a campaign group.
Pinkstinks says the "pinkification" of little girls causes them to choose less challenging careers and pass up opportunities as they grow up." - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8402628.stm

Personally I'm not exactly pro it.  I believe there's a place for pink.  Thing Two adores pink, but she also like yellow, lilac, blue etc.  She lives in a pink room, pink walls, pink carpet, pink bedding, pink blind.  Her favourite colours are Orange and pink.  I often let her choose her own things and sometimes she loves pink and other times she doesn't.  For instance she recently chose two dresses one being super pink with brown dots and the other being turquoise, brown, red and white....so quite a bit different...she could have chosen two pink ones she could have chosen two none pink ones...the choice was hers.  I think that is important.... 'choice'.  Many mums who have a lil girl like pink clothes and pink bedding and to an extent sometimes pink buggies, as my first was Thing One when I had Thing Two I loved being able to buy pink because even though there's nothing stopping you, pink isn't generally a colour you buy for boys or one boys would often choose.   Yet girls can happily wear pale blues and pinks.

Many girls naturally gravitate towards pink fluffy girly things and in all honesty, what is the harm, as in really?  Pink is a fun, happy and often innocent colour.  Is there an issue with girls being girly?  Does it make them into doormats? Does it encourage them to fulfil a pretty and submissive gender role?  No.  Thing Two loves pink....and cars...and heavy metal (& dead things). She's diverse.

To a child a colour is just that, a colour.  Any symbolism and connotations attached to it are purely manufactured by adult minds and then impressed upon children.

Saying that as a kid i hated pink, red was my fave colour.

The thing that irks me however is unnecessary pinking of things.  If you look in say the Argos catalogue now you will see a baby gym...then a pink one.  A push-along walker...........and a pink one.  A bouncy chair............and a pink one.  THIS in my opinion is unnecessary.  I mean seriously the usual ones are bright, cheerful, unisex and great.  I think it's unnecessary to foist pink on things that don't need it but there's nothing wrong with having specific pink stuff. There isn't however a blue walker for instance, so it would seem the manufacturers deem the child friendly (unisex) one for boys?  There isn't a need to replicate it in pink with the only purpose of it being to market it towards girls who quite frankly are far too young to care.

 So what if a little girl adores fairies and princesses...... it's childhood. Why shouldn't she?  Why should we dictate what our children can and can't and even should and shouldn't like when it comes to something like colour? What's wrong with just letting them decide?  So what if a little girl likes pink and dolls and fairy wings...and likewise so what if she prefers a firemen costume and bob the builder toys.

On the other extreme you get people like The Grandad who is appalled by the notion of boys and pink.  He has some unfathomable issue with Thing One hugging or kissing him as he's apparently too old for that.  Thing One is seven, The Grandad has been trying to get Thing One to shake his hand instead for several years.  He also had issues with The Toddler having a penchant for dressing up in Thing Two's high heeled play shoes, tutu's and pink roller skates.  However, it's interesting to note that he's never had an issue with Thing Two liking cars.

I think sometimes parents try too hard to conform to stereotypes and likewise some try too hard to navigate their children away from them.  Is either right?  Aren't both..technically a form of dictatorship and the parent pressing their beliefs on their child?  Where's the room for child choice and organic growth?  Is the sexism in the pink or actually within the anti-pink?

Labels, stereotypes and connotations are adult concepts.  An item, object or colour only has as much meaning as you invest into it.  A cross to a christian is symbolic, a cross to an atheist might just be another shape.  Pink is just that...a colour....a child knows not about any significance it has in later life and shaping a person, it is the adults around the child that has these ideas and imprints them upon children.   Is there anything that wrong with a girl wanting to be girly?  Should we encourage them all to wear dungers and wellies and spit through their teeth just to uncomform to archetypal femininity?

Let them wear pink i say (or blue, or yellow or purple or orange) A child is a sum of many parts, a colour alone will not make them (or break them)

I can't personally discriminate on colour alone.  I didn't let Thing Two have kiddie makeup sets until last christmas when she was 5 and asked for some.  We have rules as in she can only wear it once every so often and she can only wear it inside. I didn't let my son have a toy gun because I don't agree with what it is and what it's primary use is and we needed him to understand this, now he's seven he has a spud gun and a water gun.  Myself and my brothers played with them as children and we're not psycopaths or should I say i'm not, I can't vouch for them.  Surely depriving them of the above is inadvertantly infusing them with more negativity and issues. However, I cannot and will not deny a colour because of what it 'may' represent to 'some' people.

Unnecessary pinking.  We have the v-tech walker that we've had since Thing One and i find it ludicrous that you can buy the original...and a pink one.  Why? The first one wasn't all blue or anything!?  Thing One had a chunky elc garage and then Thing Two loved it and now The Toddler loves it.  They love it because it's a garage, it's green and red and orange.....i can't see how it being pink will improve it in any way other then stating 'this' is for girls, it's more about anti-boys then pro-girls which is absurd.

I didn't 'like' pink until my late teens and then it was only to confuse people because i was a goth and even whilst rebelling from convention i had to rebel within my none conformity,  or something.

Whilst Thing Two gravitates towards pinks and lilacs Thing One and The Toddler also naturally gravitate towards cars and dinosaurs.  All three of them have had access to cars, garages, kitchens, dolls, buggies, tools.  We encourage them to independently choose what they wish to play with.  Gender identity isn't always a negative thing.  An equal amount of caution should be applied to degenderising children.  Why shouldn't a boy be a boy and what exactly is wrong with a female being feminine, if they so choose?

Why is being a 'girl' so insulting?!" Exactly, I mean after all shouldn't we celebrate our femininity if we so choose?  Has it really come to a time were it's politically incorrect to be a girl?

Girls naturally like to emanate woman, and boys men.  Isn't this natural?  I'm sure there's been experiments with children in the past where they put them in rooms with boy/girl toys and despite liking them all girls do gravitate to girl toys and boys to boys, why is this wrong? is it really that it's just not 'preferable' for the parent?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDjquwVArMg

Child of our Time experiment showing how all the girls preferred the taste of 'princess pop' even though it was exactly the same as 'rocket pop'

I especially hate it when we get people who try and take this to another level and make a political and social statement of their child and their parenting like dressing boys specifically in pinks and purples etc and buying them 'girls' toys not because the boy might actually ask for them but to prove a point and to exercise their rabid feminism when infact isn't this stripping the little boys of their gender identity too?  Shouldn't we let children gravitate naturally towards their chosen colours and toys? Why does it suddenly have to be a statement and about a wider issue?  Thing One hates pink but loves dolls prams (granted he 'drives' them lol) Thing Two loves pink and also adores cars / monster trucks / trains.....as well as dolls and ponies. 
Live and let live.  Childhood is far too short as it is, why not just enjoy it with them.


There really are much more pressing and potentially damaging issues then colour.

Children make no association with colour and their place in society, so maybe the problem is grown, cultivated and spread by adults making an issue where actually...there probably isn't one.
Let them make their own minds up and just let them 'be'.

Children learn by replication.  Some claim toy kitchens etc are sexist and encouraging children from an early age to conform to gender stereotyping.  Are they really though?  Or is it merely enabling a child to fulfil their need to replicate what they see in every day life and to identify with their parents? The Toddler simply adores his toy Dyson and as soon as The Husband gets the real one out, The Toddler rushes to get his and hoovers with him. 

I think there's a fine balance between over thinking our children's childhood and under thinking it both of which are guilty of the disintegration of childhood itself and the magic and innocence associated with it.