The Conspiracy of Pink

Well, it seems my inconsistencies have been outed. Now, to explain to Tinybites why I had to list that I Hate Pink yet happened to be wearing a shirt of the EXACT color in a picture I posted, I must go into the whole story of Pink Hatred. If you are not interested in the reasons behind Pink Hatred, you should click on a favorite on the side of your browser now, or type in something on your address bar IMMEDIATELY, because here begins the pinkness.

I can't say when it was, exactly, when I started hating pink. I know in grade school and junior high I was fairly amenable to the color, and even clearly remember buying clothes in the wonderful soft madras of pink and grey in the mid and late 80's. Karol may recall the outfit that she, Amy, and I all owned that was a wonderful rendition of that exact theme. In my freshman yearbook picture (go ahead, Derek, check it out) I am wearing a pink striped sweater. I am also looking a bit loopy and I still attribute that to the filling I had done the same morning and the resulting migraine, but I digress. I believe it was somewhere around sophomore year that I realized my ultimate goal of no longer being a little girl. Please recall that in the decades past, fashions tended to accent the adult that would be coming rather than the child that was being left behind. There was no cute little character t-shirts that girls wore to school. We were 15 and we wore heels to school and looked like the next corporate cutthroat. So I ditched the pink. It became my idea that pink was infantile and cute. I have spent most of my life trying to get rid of the "cute" factor. And so it began. There was the period of accidental avoidance, where I just ignored the clothes in my closet that were pink. Then the more deliberate not-buying things that were pink. Eventually that led to the active dislike and purging of all things pink. By the time I was 16 and off to Spain, it was widely accepted that I Hated Pink. By the time I got married, there were gag gifts all in pink at my shower (go ahead- think of EVERYTHING). Then I got pregnant and found out I was having a girl. That was the antithesis of Pink Hatred and a sign that the Conspiracy of Pink had won. I persevered, I tell you. I painted the nursery robin egg blue and made it a bunny theme, with flowers to make it more feminine. I bought little dresses in blue and yellow. I stockpiled the cutest red outfits you could find. Then, shortly after Emma was born and I was happily Pink Free, people started buying into the Pink Conspiracy. The fact is that every baby is androgynous until we hear a gender specific name or see gender clues, such as PINK. So even in the most flowery red outfits or the prettiest blue dresses people took to be gender clues of the wrong distinction. They referred to my dearest little girl as a BOY. Since I grew up with a non-gender specific name, this was a sore spot. This is where the Pink Conspiracy had begun the moment I was born, laying the foundation for the day when I had to give in to Pink. I went out and bought the PINKEST dresses, headbands, sweaters and pants I could find and dressed my daughter in nothing but Pink. With daughter number 2 I didn't even put the other clothes on. Just Pink. Then that color began to creep into my thinking. Oh, I would say, that pink sweater is quite pretty. Look at that book cover, I really like the pink and green scheme. Suddenly I was realizing my choices of wardrobe pieces were coming down to blue or pink. The green choice is frequently too garish. The purple is well, purple, and doesn't match many things except, um, pink. So when faced with Kohl's table of sweaters I am sometimes forced to take the Pink. Then, to top it off, it is a color that looks great on me. I glow. I hum with a happiness of pink that most people look for with every thing they put on. In truth, Pink suits me. But I still hate it, just on principal.