Mission Impossible

When I was a little girl I loved pink. So much so that I convinced my parents (who were such good sports) to let me paint my bedroom walls a bright, glossy pink. The trim, I decided, had to be glossy purple. I loved that room.

When I found out I was having a little girl, I was so excited. I started thinking about what comes with raising a little girl - and wondered to myself what comes naturally, and what is imposed on little girls by society (this gets scary when one really thinks about it -- especially when one has a background in PR and media).

So I decided to try to hold off on pushing societal norms on Chase as long as possible -- to do so, I broke down my plan into four parts:

Part 1: I was determined to dress her in green and yellow from a young age so she didn't have any forced association to the color pink

Part 2: I would bypass dolls as long as possible and offer stuffed animals instead

Part 3: I would avoid gender-biased toys (little ovens would be replaced with butterfly nets and chemistry sets).

Part 4: I wanted to provide Chase with as many natural looking toys as possible - so no make-believe animals (pink rabbits, yellow bears).

Five months in to my plan and I'm finding it exceedingly difficult for the following reasons:

Part 1: 99.9999% of children's clothes are pink or blue. Any green or yellow clothing usually has funky colored butterflies, flowers, etc. Plus, I've realized that when one has an entire wardrobe that is pink, it is super easy to change out dirty clothes quickly because they all match.

Part 2: Working so far, but I don't hold out much hope. I think I should probably start picking my battles and just try to steer her towards Groovy Girls and away from Bratz.

Part 3: So far, so good.

Part 4: I feel utterly defeated. It is simply not possible to find real looking animals, mobiles, etc. Plus, I didn't realize that you wipe out fairies, gnomes, etc.

Ah well.