While writing this post, I am enjoying a nice glass of wine. I tell you that not as a disclaimer for the contents, but to put it upfront that I am not pregnant. Dear friends and family, do not entertain a glimmer of hope that because I am writing about baby colors and baby decor that I am about to have a baby. (However, if you read to the end of this post, you will be treated to some pictures of me as a baby.)
Instead, this post is part of our continued (and likely unwanted) commentary about Pantone’s choice of Rose Quartz and Serenity as the colors of the year.
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While I still don’t like the colors, I do want to give Pantone just a tiny bit of props for what they might mean as a statement about the fluidity of gender roles and norms. (This props doesn’t have anything to do with us trying to avoid a lawsuit. I swear.) It is an interesting time for that conversation, with target going gender neutral, a clash between old and new feminism, and an overall cultural swing toward self-definition.
But if you read my book report last year on the intersection between color, language, and culture, it won’t surprise you that I want to take the conversation into a slightly different direction, and pull up a few articles about how pink and blue became associated with girls and boys to begin with.
When I was doing background reading for that post, I was surprised to learn that the association of these colors with gender is relatively new! While there is some disagreement on when it started, it is generally thought that through the early part of the 19th century gender-neutral clothing (usually white dresses) was the norm for dressing both baby girls and baby boys. It wasn’t until they got older that they would start wearing clothing that would separate them into different roles.
In the 1910s and 1920s, there was even the idea that pink was for boys and blue was for girls (or at least enough confusion that trade publications and major retailers were making that suggestion).
But by the 1940s the now-standard pink for girls, blue for boys divide began. According to the scholarly literature, that could be because french fashion was popular at the time and had that association, because women were evolved to be gatherers and thus were attracted to berry-red tones (something not really supported by study), or… just because.
This obsession waned a bit during the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s, but returned strong in the 1980s with the widespread use of prenatal testing, and the realization that you could sell nearly twice as much baby stuff if parents had to buy all new products in a different color when preparing for a baby of a different gender.
Photographer JeongMee Yoon – Seo Woo and Her Pink Things – (via)
I think it is really interesting that one of the most defined and universal color-identities that we have as a culture is such a recent phenomenon.
I wouldn’t be sad to see it go. As a frequent blog/decor magazine reader, I’m really happy with the new direction that I’ve seen in nurseries recently, toward more gender-neutral fun themes – particularly the woodland nursery trend.
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As much as we make fun of the trend of putting animals on things… can we agree that in a baby’s room it is pretty cute to put animals on things?
And what did my own bedroom look like? I was born in 1986, during the resurgence of pink and blue. However, my parents decorated my room pretty gender neutral, and kept it that way.
Oh, that clown and balloons lamp is a staple of my decor heritage.
There was pink and blue involved, sure, but the walls were yellow, the carpet was green, and there were mainly just a whole lot of different colors about.
And, in case you’re wondering, Sage’s childhood bedroom was lilac (although she declined to provide any photographic evidence for this post, because she supposedly doesn’t have any).
So what do you think? Are we moving away from pink and blue for babies, or is that here to stay? What was your room like as a baby?
Oh my goodness! Baby Naomi and her 80s jeans are just about the most precious thing I’ve ever seen. I love it when folks stray from pink and blue in nurseries, clothing and basically anything. Plus with such amazing other color options for babies (green! yellow! marsala! :)), I don’t know why one wouldn’t go this route instead.
A marsala baby room would be inspired. ESPECIALLY if combined with lemon yellow and lime green. Thanks for the inspiration Stephanie!
To each their own but I love a good neutral room. My girls’ nursery was grey and yellow and now their room has a black wall– it makes my heart skip a beat, with awesomeness. My oldest would have her whole room look like purple threw up in there if I’d let her. Kids and their opinions.. 😉
Totally! It allows for so much more flexibility as they grow up and their style changes. And in the spirit of full disclosure, when I got to decorate my own room as a kid “purple threw up everywhere” was my EXACT decorating concept. Fortunately my parents let me change it back once I realized my mistake 🙂
Mistake??? What is this mistake you speak of?
Wow! Who are the the gorgeous woman and the hunky guy in those pictures?
I was going to say that, too. Glad you did first!
🙂
Hi Dad!
I don’t know for sure if my parents chose the pale green that my room (the former sunporch) was painted when I first remember it, or if they were sick of painting after they’d painted over the dark, dark maroon in the bedroom (they left the closet) or the even darker blue-grey in the kitchen (they left the inside of the cabinets) but when I was three and the room was re-done when I moved from the crib to the youth bed, *I* got to choose the color from paint chips, a lovely soft blue. The very old dark red linoleum floor was covered in beige-marbly vinyl tiles, and the trap door to the cellar covered up.
Wow, choosing your own color at 3? That’s pretty cool. Sounds like you made a good pick.
And I got to go to the hardware store and watch the paint being mixed!
Haha, I bet that was awesome!
Originally I was to share my mother’s lovely cream room but in a fit of nesting the week before I was born, she painted the room peach. Standing on a ladder, leaning her pregnant belly on the top step for support. When I got my own bedroom I chose peach, probably because I thought it was the only colour a bedroom could be. Peach is now my favourite accent colour to my beloved blue.
Oh my! But I do love the peach and blue combination that you’re talking about!
I don’t like pantone colour of the season choice either.
I have 3 boys who would quite happily wear pink and one of them still has a couple of pink t-shirts.
When they were babies their nurseries were gender neutral in colour. That was partly due to the fact that I decorated them before they were born and didn’t know their sex until they popped out.
That’s great! I think that’s what happened with my parents, as well.
We painted our son’s room green when he was a baby, with a frog theme (webbed toes run in the family, so we wanted him to get to know his spirit animal early on). His new room is painted gray, so it’s easy to change up the accent colors whenever he feels like it without having to change the wall color.
Oh, and I remember having that balloon lamp growing up too! Ah, the 80’s…
The balloon lamp was the best! By the time I got rid of it, it was so terribly faded. Love the frog theme for a baby room! So many cute nicknames can come out of that, I bet.