Woman Cheered for Unusual Revenge on 'Judgmental' Mother-in-Law
A new mom has been cheered for dressing her new baby daughter in blue, despite her mother-in-law's anger.
In a post with over 11,000 upvotes on Reddit, user u/F0restghost shared the family dilemma she was at the center of.
"It started when we had our first baby, a girl. We bought mostly neutral clothes to make life easier and because we like it. We got some hand me down clothes in both blue and pink and lots of gifts, especially from my mother-in-law," she wrote.
Initially, the new mom didn't object to the pink and sparkly clothes that her mother-in-law bought for the baby, but recently things had become tense when her mother-in-law took issue with the outfit the baby was wearing.
"One day I dressed our girl in the color blue and my mother-in-law lost her mind," recalled the new mom. "She said, 'Noo! You have to dress her in girly clothes, or else she might end up as a homosexual or a trans person.'"
Furious, the new parent couldn't believe what she was hearing and expressed her upset with her mother-in-law.
The idea of blue for boys and pink for girls is a relatively new phenomenon. Before the late 19th century, there was no color-coding for gender and babies and young children were usually dressed in white to symbolize purity and innocence.
Pastel colors for baby clothing became popular in the mid-19th century, but sex-specifics didn't arrive until the 20th century.
It was then that some department stores started suggesting "sex-appropriate" color coordination. In 1918, trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department claimed the "generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."
Baby boomers born in the 1940s were among the first Americans to be dressed with this gendered color coding. This was when there was a shift that girls would be dressed like little women and boys as miniature men—and as a result pink became a girls' color and blue was given to boys.
Specific clothing colors took another dip in popularity in the 60s and 70s, but became popular again by the 1980s when prenatal testing to reveal a baby's sex before birth was introduced to the masses—something that also prompted the world of "gender reveals."
Societal Expectations Are Expressed Using the Colors
Clare Willetts is the CEO and founder of Not Only Pink And Blue, a company that consults on projects and challenges the buying behavior that perpetuates stereotypes with a brand directory for parents.
She told Newsweek: "It's so disheartening that the mother-in-law is acting this way with her grandchild. Colors are simply colors and the girls' parents should be able to dress her in any colors they want to."
Willetts explained that older generations tend to be more attached to the idea of gendered colors, explaining: "Older generations are attached to it as it is what they have known, and the messages of pink equals girly and blue equals masculine have been absorbed by them as the norm.
"The problem is not the colors, but the messages and language that we use along with those colors. So the colors become the short cut. These societal expectations are expressed using the colors—pretty in pink, boisterous in blue—and the assumption based on those colors about that child becomes the norm."
As a result of her mother-in-law's complaints, the new mom sprung into action. "Every time since that I have dressed our girl in blue just to p*** her off," she explained. "She's so judgmental and homophobic and she keep trashing on the LGBTQ+ community and I'm over it. My partner thinks I'm overreacting and that it's unnecessary to do this every time we meet. He thinks I'm mean to annoy her."
In thousands of comments on the post on Reddit, people cheered the new mom and shared their frustration at the mother-in-law's comments.
"Make your life easier just refuse to see this ignorant bigot at all and ask your husband why he's so keen to placate such disgusting nonsense," said user millykat.
While RickWest495 wrote: "Dress her in a different color every time. Then dress her in a rainbow flag and watch your mother-in-law explode. Whatever you do, never dress her in pink again."
"I often remind people that until 2013 in France it was illegal for women to wear trousers," said Willetts. "Of course, no one adhered to the law but officially they had to gain permission from the local police in order to wear them. No-one had thought to repeal the 200-year-old law.
"It is a good reminder just how arbitrary the rules that we place around clothes and colors are."
Newsweek reached out to u/F0restghost for comment via Reddit.
If you have a family dilemma, let us know via life@newsweek.com. We can ask experts for advice, and your story could be featured on Newsweek.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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