Pink & Blue
April 18, 2025 — 8:32pm
Dear Reese,
We took your ten-month pictures this morning. A day late, but really you were born in the evening on June 17th, so this is only ten months and twelve hours or so . . .
It’s small potatoes, but I like to be on time for these things. Dates and rhythms matter to me.
It has become a challenge to get you to stay still for a picture, but when I ask, you smile at me and I love, love, love you.
That bow only stays on your head for half a minute before you’re tugging it off. Some little girls wear bows every day, but I never tried with you. You do get mistaken for a boy a lot when we’re out — look, I like the color blue — but that says more about society than anything you and I should change.
Is it too early to tell you about the homophobic history of pink and blue and gender? A century ago, pink was for boys and blue was for girls, but the colors were reversed post World War II. In Nazi Germany, pink triangles were used in concentration camps to identify gay men which led to people associating pink with feminity.
I like pink too, darling, and you wear plenty of it. There was a period in my upbringing where it wasn’t cool to be girly and like pink — the popular kids were tomboys, and when someone asked me in third grade if I was going to wear a skirt every day, I stopped wearing them.
A year or so later, we got to pick out the color of our recorders in music class. Blue, green, or pink. I wanted pink, but I figured everyone was going to get pink. Or maybe I still thought it wasn’t cool enough. Either way, I got blue. In the end, every girl got blue or green except for one. I was so jealous of that pink recorder and too embarrassed to say I had wanted it too.
I guess I just hope you can grow up without believing there are “boy” colors and “girl” colors, because there is just color. A whole rainbow for you.
Or maybe I mean to say I hope you can learn to love what you love and never feel shame for it. I don’t anymore. I like red and blue, and deck our house out in Spider-Man and anime decor, and it makes me so happy.
Just like taking this bow off your head makes you so happy this morning.
Love,
Mama