33 Months (the second)

The next topic that I wish to delve into regarding my lovely daughter is one that often frightened me greatly from the moment we found out that she was a girl. Quinn is obsessed with the color pink. It is by far her favorite color and I have no idea how to stop it!

We've always been very clear about our disdain regarding the gender specific brainwashing that is so pervasive in our culture and how much we wish to bring up our children in an environment that is free from these evil forces. It's a prominent problem in the landscape of capitalistic amerika and if you don't believe me then go into your local toy store and have a look around. It's absolutely disgusting and every time it's reinforced I find myself doing everything in my power to offset the demonizing source, which doesn't seem to be having much of an effect so far.

Everywhere I turn with my daughter in tow, it's "I want to wear that pick outfit" or "I want the pink bag" or "Pink is my favorite, Daddy". She does tend to compromise a little bit if I suggest something in purple. Pink or purple, that's it. She humors us with some of the outfits we make her wear but if the choice is hers, then it's definitely pink.

I have no idea where she gets it from either. We don't let her watch any shows that might influence her one way or the other. If we do then it's something that will express gender neutralization as much as possible. It's almost like it's an inherent part of who she is, some extreme form of karma that I can't explain. It's not like she gravitates toward all things gender specific. She's not really interested in dolls, tending to play with Lucas's hand-me-down cars more often than anything that could be considered girly. She does have a stroller but she loads it up with her kitty-cat stuffed animals, which are very pretty neutral beyond the fact that she likes cats and Lucas likes dogs. Not sure if that's a common differentiation at this age or not. It just seems like all of this pink affinity was like a bolt of lightning that came down to inform Quinn's personality.

At the turn of the 19th century it was the exact opposite. Pink was considered a boys color and blue was often used for girls. Somewhere along the line this changed and in the modern day, pink has become heavily associated with girls. It all boils down to an intense form of marketing that is geared toward creating division amongst us so that we will buy as much stuff as possible. If pink is not accepted per the masculinity standards of our future men, then we have to buy more clothes for our children if they happen to be of different gender. Now, Christina and I don't follow along with these marketing standards and have never had an issue with dressing Quinn in Lucas's old clothes. We've even gotten comments to this day about our beautiful little cherubic young lad. It's meaningless at this point and I could care less whether total strangers are aware of the gender of my children.

That's what makes this infatuation that Quinn has all the more infuriating. She's either totally aware of the kids around her, which really wouldn't surprise me because she is very keen on other aspects of life, or someone has been secretly subverting our parental guidance. There's a few suspects that I have in mind but I don't have enough evidence to convict them entirely, plus I still trust them enough to give them the benefit of the doubt. So, that means I'm back to where I began, completely at a loss about my daughter's mysterious obsession.

Perhaps I need to get over my own obsessions. Maybe my utter devotion to molding them into a force of individualism and humanism doesn't have to be imposed on every aspect of their life. Maybe their instinctive desires and attitudes should develop without so much guidance from above. They already are growing up in a world that is completely fresh from the one that we grew up in and they will evolve in ways that we will be completely unaware. Perhaps there is a way for me to twist this misguided form of gender division. My own father used to act like a complete goof at times in order to show us the folly of many of our childish concerns. It wasn't always the most effective means to get a point across but I remember many of those embarrassing moments to this day and they often bring a smile to my face. I suppose I'll have to find a way to adopt the color pink in a way that shows the useless attention we create in our culture that only divide us from our basic human tendencies. Not in a way that will embarrass her or make her dislike me, but in a way that helps her evolve into a more comfortable human being regardless of the color adorning her body.