Behind

[mrissa]

I am behind on everything. You name it and it's still on my list to do. I am trying not to feel like a failure at everything, because I know that getting this puppy and starting to get her trained to be the kind of puppy we want to have (the kind who doesn't mess the rugs and chew the power cords constantly, for example; the kind people are reasonably glad to see, rather than the kind they avoid) is a major project, and she doesn't seem to think I'm failing at it at all, even when I feel like I've said "no" for the forty-leventh time this hour. I even did not manage to get a friend's birthday card out in time. I am not a person who does that. It alarms me.

I keep reminding myself that the main theoretical reason I am so organized and get things done promptly is not because then I feel better and can do more stuff (although that's probably the main actual reason) but so that if I have some combination of major projects come up, I can handle them without permanently falling behind on everything on the planet. And that spending time with the puppy is sometimes -- even often -- fun, but also qualifies as doing something productive at this stage of her training, so I really shouldn't feel guilty if one of my short stories doesn't get resubmitted for another day or two, or if the desk is a mass of clutter, or if the London pictures aren't all processed and written about and posted.

I even have all kinds of things I've been meaning to say on lj and haven't gotten around to. For example, I went to get a receiving blanket to serve as Ista's binkie, the morning before I went to get Ista. And I found two that were not explicitly and excessively gendered, out of dozens: the white fuzzy one I bought, and one with yellow and green stripes. And yah, okay, our language is gendered when it refers to sentients, so people are going to be more comfortable with cues that tip them off about which pronouns to use. But does every single object around a kid have to give these cues? Putting a girlbaby in a pink onesie isn't enough -- we have to have flowers and hearts all over it, a pink receiving blanket with flowers and hearts on it, pink booties, a ruffly hat, preferably a girly blanket and diaper bag? Because someone might be confused if we let her have green socks at the age of 2 weeks? Do I really care about the confusion of such people? Frankly, I do not.

And in the face of all this, many people will insist that if an 18-month-old does something, that counts as not socially influenced?

It may be that, in a perfectly equitable situation with no choice biased externally, 99% of little girls would prefer flowers and tiaras and 99% of little boys would prefer dumptrucks and helicopters. I think it's still important to make it a choice, to make sure that they have the chance to choose them. To make sure they can choose flowers and helicopters if they want to. Even if 100% of them reacted that way. If we're going to use color-coding to say what's "girl stuff" and "boy stuff," I don't think we need the additional roles appliqued on the blankets. Where are my pink helicopters, dammit? Where are my blue flowers?

It is going to be a long 18 years once we start the clock ticking (which, since I am of that age and marital status, I feel the need to reiterate that we have not). I don't know, maybe it's just that I have the time to fuss with a puppy, and a baby will take up so much energy that I'll say, "Hell with it, wrap the twerp in a gold-embroidered camo sarong if you want, but let's get out of the house already."

Comments

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

I always said if I did have a kid I'd dress it in purple and green and yellow and bright red and bright orange. Or ethnic prints. Anything but pink and blue. Gaaa.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I like blue. I also don't sew. And I don't want to cause a rebellion, either: there will almost certainly be a phase when a kid is totally fixated on wearing proper [insert gender here] clothes, and I think it's much more harmful and likely to result in stereotype behavior to insist that they absolutely mayn't. (I hate pastels, though. Even if it's not a gendery thing.) I will save my "absolutely not"s for things that directly affect their health, mostly, and even then...one of my friends had a mother who would not let her wear high heels. Ever. She went in flats to prom because her mom wouldn't relent. So when she moved out of the house, of course she gravitated to spike heels. Whereas I got heels when I was 14, and I learned to walk in them, and I learned how annoying they are, and I won't wear them any more except for one pair for weddings, selectively.

But considering who my kids' Mormor will be? They'll have their pink or blue covered, and I can go on to rainbows and denim and whatever else.

(We had an argument at my cousin's baby shower about whether a grey sweatshirt and a pair of jeans was a gender-neutral outfit for a baby. Everyone in my generation said it was, and everyone in my mom's or grandma's said it wasn't.)

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking more along the infant stages. Once they're old enough to pick, it's up to them.

I like the shock value of the people not knowing if it's a boy or a girl. Their world may end! *g*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I do want to ask what exactly they will do with the knowledge of how a 3-week-old's genitals are configured. Dodge, in half the diaper-changing cases, but other than that.

But I try to be understanding because it's one of the few known things about a kid that age, and because our language is only set up for circumlocution for the motivated. (I do make an effort to say things like, "What a sweet little one!" that don't rely on gender.)

And before anyone brings it up, I hate zie/zir as a gender-neutral pronoun, because it only works for the initiated: people who don't know that they are supposed to be listening for gender-neutral as well as gendered ones invariably, in my experience, hear "she/her."

[telophase.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine told me about a highschool classmate of hers. His parents were very accepting and forgiving of everything, and he had the hardest time in the world attempting to rebel, although he tried his best. He showed up to school one day in a skirt, and morosely informed my friend that his father merely complimented him on destroying gender sterotypes.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, mostly people are trying to make pleasant conversation without upsetting the parent, and it's a little awkward to keep restructuring sentences to avoid using pronouns.

You've already commented on how poorly the zie/zir experiment has worked out. I suppose you could try reviving the Victorian convention of referring to babies and small children as "it." This would at least have the advantage of offending all the parents more or less equally, rather than just the half of them where you guessed the wrong gender.

[sculpin.livejournal.com]

Yep. All those cues? Entirely necessary. Or so my mother tells me. This is why, when I was a bald little baby, she used to scotch-tape bows onto my head so strangers would stop thinking I was a little boy.

(But then, I'm not sure she's ever stopped worrying about my gender differentiation, actually. The nagging in high school to wear makeup -- yikes. And so now I have short hair, live in jeans and t-shirts, and am generally makeup-free.)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"You name it and it's still on my list to do."

Don't challenge them.

B

[palinade.livejournal.com]

I tried to stay away from boy = blue for as long as possible, but frankly, I just liked blue. I tend to wear a lot of it and N looks really good in primary colors, so blue falls into line there all the time. But for images, I stuck with animals, baby dinos, aquatic images (baby octupi, fish, turtles), rabbits. Some bears, but I'm super picky about bears, so not as much of that. There was a fair amount of yellows and greens, too. But yes, the pinks all tended to have flowers, butterflies, hearts, and other girly froofiness, which I don't like as an adult woman.

I wouldn't be opposed to paisleys, plaids, geometric prints, stripes, or dots, but they were not as easy to find for infants. Some dots and stripes, but harder to find as we approach toddler sized clothes.

[genevra.livejournal.com]

Even if you do have the child color-coded, people will ask if it's a girl or a boy. I have had my twins out with pink on the girl and blue on the boy, and people just don't get the hint. They still have to ask. The worst of them then go on to ask if they're identical.

And I have to say that I do only put the blue on my son, and the pink on my daughter. (Neutral colors go on either one, but I kind of keep it consistent as to which particular outfits.) Mostly, it's for my own ease. That way, I can tell which one it is even if I only see him/her out of the corner of my eye. The couple of times that I have put them in the same color, it's absolutely driven me nuts!

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I generally wore a tiara while driving a truck, although at other times I am pretty sure that I was peddling my bright green bike furiously as I beat both Speed Racer and Racer X right before I leapt off to rescure The Prince, and trounce Magneto soundly or save him.. this last isn't entirely clear, and then the Universe. I was a genre bender as a kid.

Puppies are glorious, and tough.

HAHAHA!!

[one-undone.livejournal.com]

That would be my kid...I'm dreading his teen years for about the same reason...how the hell will he rebel against US?

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Twins must be fun! I was reading last month about a couple who had quads, and they had a tattoo artist come to the hospital and put tiny tattoos on their big toes so the parents could always tell them apart. At least you can tell with a diaper check. *g*

[(Anonymous)]

When we had Siri, I was determined to avoid pink as the primary color in her wardrobe and went to the effort to find dresses (yes, I do still like the girly bits, just not overly frilly or pink) that were blue, green, yellow, etc. By the time we got to Bridget, however, I had stopped worrying about the colors and was more worried about time constraints on shopping and making the shopping public, read Siri, happy. Siri gets to help pick out Bridget's clothes, which means *lots* of pinks, and people always seem genuinely happier when they are able to identify the gender of a baby on their own, so pink works well for that as well. One thing I did notice with putting Bridget in pink more often was how much less stressful it was for me and others in general when they saw her. Almost everyone knew right away that she was a girl and I didn't have to correct them on gender. I suppose for that reason, pink is a double edged sword, but if you don't want it, don't let Siri pick out clothes.

Heatah

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Puppies ARE exhausting, aren't they? They don't really become civilized roommates until they are two years old, so don't expect too much from little Ista just yet. If she learns to sit, go potty, and mostly not chew up and destroy a lot of things, say, in the next six months, you'll be ahead of the curve. :-)

color-coding the babies

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

I remember when Little Miss Hatbox was about a week or two old, we three went out to breakfast. LMH (who only had a bit of fuzz for hair) was dressed in a pink sleeper (not because I'm big on pink; it just happened that way), but happened to have a blue-and-yellow blanket (from a package of gender-neutral blankets).

Some random lady stranger went to coo over her and asked LMH's name and age, using masculine pronouns. I replied offhandedly, "Oh, her name is [name] and she's (however old)."

The lady immediately turned defensive at learning LMH's true gender: "Well, I couldn't tell. She's in blue, after all."

In short, it doesn't matter what color you dress a very small baby. If strangers misread any cues (if there are any) and guess wrong, they will blame the mom and bite her head off.

[ellarien]

Not particularly relevant to puppies or very young babies, but I find myself somewhat bemused by the modern trend for bright pink hearts-and-flowers design in things that are per se rather unisex, like bedroom TV sets and bicycles.

(Checks for pink icon, comes up blank.)

[ladysea.livejournal.com]

Almost everything I had for Bri was purchased by someone else. And alot of it was pink. I once had her in a pink outfit, with a pink hat and blankie. Someone said, "Awww...he is so cute!" The worst part is I had just introduced this person to Bri. But he was a hard-core gamer geek, so I am sure his brain was not actually with us at the time. =P

We decided long ago that if she wanted dump trucks...she would get dump trucks. If she wanted dolls fine.

She has settled on an odd variety of dolls, building supplies, puzzles, and cars/planes. Oh...and the 8,000,000 stuffed animals and books.


Oh...and don't get me started on "Boys can't wear the light purple fantasy pajamas." =P

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Reid got a lot of yellow and green pre-birth (we didn't know what gender he would be, so other people didn't either). After he was born, he wore a lot of yellow, orange, red, lavender and blue. (Laura didn't like green, and as an ethnic Tar Heel, any child of mine was going to wear plenty of light blue, whatever gender they were). We did generally avoid pink; it felt like too much of a statement, since we're not all that fond of pink in general. He also had lots of white onesies.

For blankets, he had lots of yellow and plaid.

I'm surprised there are so few choices where you are. Maybe it's because Reid was so big when born that he skipped the really-bitty baby clothes stage, or maybe it's a regional thing. I don't know.

We try not to make an issue of anything Reid chooses. So he's a purse-carrying, pink-boot-coveting, rough-and-tumble jock baby. Works for us.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't find it at all awkward. "What a sweet little one! What name did you choose?" And if the name is unclear as to gender, I use the baby's name. (This is also my solution to referring to adult humans who don't choose to make their gender known to me: it sounds a little funny, but on the other hand, people are individuals and not just categories.) I have no problem with people who guess wrong, laugh, and move on. I do have a problem with people who then yell at the parents because they couldn't just ask.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Telling twins apart at a glance, consistently, is an extremely good reason for color-coding. (Also, people are not very well-informed when it comes to genetics. I know it would be rude to ask them, "Is a penis identical to a vagina?" But I would be tempted.)

Re: HAHAHA!!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I knew some kids with freaky parents who became little authoritarians in high school.

Myself, I never did rebel. I do things that aren't what my parents would do, but they're for other reasons than that.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My aunt used Elmer's on a bow for me. I was one of those little bald Norwegian babies, and I have to say, little babies with hair always take me aback.

My mom wanted me to wear makeup in high school, too, but it wasn't at all about gender differentiation. I wore flannel shirts, geek T-shirts, baggy jeans, and hiking boots for most of high school and college, and on me they became extremely femmey, because I am Just That Girly.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Heh. Probably a good idea with this crowd.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have noticed that toddler-sized clothes really often have objects on them: bikes, bears, bats, trains, etc. Even the ones that aren't brand-named. I'm not sure why toddlers aren't supposed to wear solid colors, but whatever.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Siri is one of the factors that made me decide I wasn't going to fight any future spawn on clothes: as I recall, there was a time when she absolutely wanted dresses at all times, no pants. And you just shrugged and let her, and she wants to be an electrical engineer at the age of 7. A pink-clad electrical engineer? Fine, whatever!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

She's a pretty fast learner, but yeah, I know she won't be a civilized old dog for a bit now.

Teething is a beastly thing for her to have to combine with learning the rules of a new place. She just desperately needs to chew, and she desperately needs to explore, and sometimes the two combine just too well.

Re: color-coding the babies

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It seems like one of the rules of having a kid in this culture is, "If strangers ________, they will blame the mom and bite her head off."

I'm so looking forward to that.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We know someone who bought her 15-month-old a pink Disney Princess television all her very own.

In the interests of being tactful, let's just say we won't be doing that here.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It isn't as though I had time to go from shop to shop for blankets: this was just the selection at Target.

I wouldn't dress a son in pink, either, unless he asked for it. I just don't like pink.

At markgritter's birthday party, I was wearing a pareo with fringes, and Roo went up to his mom and demanded, "I NEED to be pretty" and made her wrap his lovey (blanket) like my pareo. Also he is crazy for some stereotypical "boy stuff." So whatever.

Re: HAHAHA!!

[one-undone.livejournal.com]

Sort of like the role Michael J. Fox played years ago where the kid was the Republican in the ex-hippie household I guess :-D. (I never did watch that show more than in snippets so I don't even remember what it was called but I'm sure you know the one I mean.)

We raised Dylan very "nontraditionally" - I have baby pictures where he has a ponytail, and he wore every color, including pink, and to this day he's not ashamed to say when something's pretty. He's been exposed to, but never preferred, sports. He has several teddy bears that look very "girly" but he loves them to death, and we never had a problem with it. He's really a serious kid and very fascinated with science, and he doesn't put much stock in what other people say about things - if he likes something, he'll tell me "so what if Billy doesn't like that? He's not me. He doesn't have to like it. I'm a different person." He takes good care of Logan and will be a very well-balanced and nurturing guy. We're fine with it. So many people saw him playing with his baby doll when he was really little and would tell me "you know, you're going to MAKE him GAY by letting him play with that doll!" I couldn't believe how backwards people were...it was really sad that they were so locked into such ignorance.

I don't know how Dylan can rebel...just about anything goes in our house.

Re: HAHAHA!!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I hope fewer people would say the "MAKE him GAY" thing in the Twin Cities than on national average, but I can't swear to it. It's just so...wow. I can't even imagine it.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Ah, just Target. That makes some more sense, then. Their baby/toddler section is annoying--they'll have a dozen kinds of girl hats, and then just baseball caps for boys. (Just because I want my son's ears covered doesn't mean I want to put him in frills and flowers).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

R. in a wee Gilligan hat would be on the list of Cutest Things Ever.

[sculpin.livejournal.com]

So I'm not the only one who had bows artificially attached! Hooray! (Elmers, yikes.)

The baggy jeans and flannel shirts become extremely femmey on me, too, and the only person who didn't recognize it was my mother. In college, in fact, I tried to go butch. I really tried. Shaved my head and everything. I wound up looking waifish, adorable, and utterly femme with my shaved head, army jacket, and big punk boots. Femininity: it's an animal thing, not a fashion thing.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

We'll have to show you the pictures then. He's had a white one, a blue one, and a beige one over time.

[genevra.livejournal.com]

Not to mention... why the heck does a 15-month-old need her own tv???

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That was one of the many points where we would have made a different choice, yes.

[jennfurr.livejournal.com]

(just lurking, friend of genevra and mnfiddledragon)

I had my newborn twins out in public, and the only clothes I had for them were ones that were bought by other people for them. I personally HATE HATE HATE pink, but that's all I had. So I had one kid in a pink onesie, with a pink cap, and a pink blanket. The other kid was in a blue onesie, a blue cap, and a blue blanket. their carseats each had a mickey mouse nametag on them saying "jake" and "marissa". and people STILL asked what their sex was!

when told they were boy/girl twins, I got the standard question "are they identical?" My standard answer "no, one has a penis, the other doesn't". I had no qualms about saying that too!

[(Anonymous)]

Isn't it fun how kids want to imitate their favorite people at that age, regardless of gender? Gavin was very taken with painting his toenails and fingernails when Nancy offered to paint Siri's. She obliged him and he was running around with pretty toes for the next couple days, which he liked immensely. The only problem was that he liked it so much he attempted to paint his own fingernails without asking permission. Such are children. :)

Heathah