Wednesday 22 August 2012


...It’s I’m a girl and I HATE PINK!

The boy will be three in December and during his short life I have tried very hard to make sure I steer away from gender stereotypes.  It seems I should have tried harder! Firstly, whilst watching the men’s Olympic diving, he told me that him and Daddy can do that (diving) but I can’t. When I asked him why, he said “because you’re a girl.” I put this down to the fact that he could only see men diving. Later that same week, he informed me he wanted some new slippers, crocodile ones. He then said that Daddy can have the monster ones and I can have the fairy slippers. I told him I wanted the monster slippers, to which he replied “no, you have to have the fairy slippers because you’re a girl.” I obviously on both occasions told him that girls can dive, girls like monsters and boys like fairies whilst wondering where these sudden sexist opinions were coming from!

Then came the big one. The boy has always liked pink, sometimes even saying it’s his favourite colour.  I never said ‘no pink is for girls’ or tried to get him to like another colour; I just treated it like I would any other colour.  However, a couple of weeks ago, he told me that he didn’t like pink and when I asked him why he replied with “because it’s for girls.”  I told him it wasn’t and that it’s ok for him to like it.  It made me sad that at such a young age, he was already being forced into choosing something, or not, because of his gender.

I thought long and hard about where he might have heard this, and remembered, I saying myself on a couple of occasions, ‘no those are for girls, they’ve got pink on look...” not because I wouldn’t want him to wear them particularly, but because he doesn’t need a pair of jeans and that was a way of telling him they weren’t for him. But knowing how hard I try I began to look elsewhere and realised perhaps I’m not trying hard enough.

I try not to let him watch TV that is aimed particularly at boys, I like stuff like Peppa Pig which I think is aimed at everyone (including adults!) He watches Dora the Explorer and Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom, but his favourite of all time is Cars.  I still don’t think this is particularly aimed at boys, and some of the racing cars in the second film are girls, Holly Shiftwell, a spy in Cars 2 may be dark purple, but she is by no means a typical female character. But it’s not the programmes that are the biggest problem; it’s the adverts in between. 

These adverts turn my stomach.  Remove the actual product they are selling (action figures for boys, and dolls for girls) it’s everything else that goes with it. An advert aimed at selling a ‘boy’s’ toy normally comes with an aggressive, fast and deep voice. The colours are normally pretty dull, but they’re not all different shades of blue, which is a bonus.  Adverts for ‘girls’ toys though, are pink...there is no other colour, pink and all the different shades of pink you can imagine. Not only this, but the advert usually comes with a ‘pink’ voiceover too.  The voice you can only imagine belongs to a porn-star trying not to be sexy, all high-pitched, trying to sound cute, yet dumb. I hate it! I know what you’re going to say...turn the TV off.

But here is the problem...everything aimed at girls DOES have pink on.  I looked through a catalogue for some bedding for the boy recently and while the boys pages do tend to be darker, there is a fairly (very small) variety of colours and themes, many are ‘boys’ like cars, dinosaurs and footballs, but there is some plain and checked etc.  However, you cannot miss the girl’s pages, they are like a young child has thrown up candy floss and smeared it all over them, whilst adding fairy wings and tiaras. It wouldn’t be so bad if some of these themes weren’t pink but they ALL are. If a girl likes princesses, fair enough, but why does the princess have to be 50 shades of pink? Why can’t she be orange, or red, or god forbid, a nice deep shade of blue?!

It would seem that girls cannot play with anything, unless it comes in pink.  The boy has a toy kitchen, which he likes to play with, why there are two versions of this kitchen, one in lovely primary colours and the other in various shades of pink baffles me. The same with the garage he had when he was younger, one in lovely bright colours and another in garish, sicky pink shades.  Why does a girl have to play with a pink garage, or a pink kitchen? And now to top it all off...PINK LEGO! I loved Lego as a child, why now do we have to have Lego for boys and Lego for girls?!

I feel like I am fighting a losing battle, but I will keep fighting. There is only so much you can do to shield your child from some of the things you may not like in the big wide world, and ultimately they will decide for themselves, all you can do is prepare them and give them the right tools. I know that some girls will legitimately love the colour pink, and I don’t have a problem with that at all, but what about all the girls that don’t like pink? Where is their choice?

Monday 18 June 2012

...it's Non-believer

I do not believe in God.  Some days I may 'pray' to something, somewhere, to help me out or give me a break, but I don't believe there is somebody out there who is listening and can change things.  But, since having a child, my categorical belief that there is no God has been brought into question.  It has surprised me and confused me.

Firstly I wonder if by through my non-believing I could be jeapordising my son's future or 'god-forbid' anything should happen to him, my son's opportunity to go to heaven...just in case there is one!

I was christened as a baby, as were most people my age and recently a few friends have had their children christened.  I have wondered if I should do the same with the boy.  Not just for the afore mentioned reasons, or the fact that you get loads of lovely presents, but because it is a part of his heritage and culture.

I live in a town which is highly diverse in terms of culture and while I love it and am excited for the boy to live in such a place where I will hope he will learn about other religions, cultures etc first hand and hopefully be open-minded, accepting of differences and willing to learn and try new things.  I come from a small, middle class, very white town. Perhaps in this mixed city I should be encouraging the boy to learn and celebrate his culture and traditions even more? 


The boy has a name with religious connotations and while this was not a reason for me choosing it, the fact that Gabriel is an important figure in the Bible, the Koran and other religions made me like it even more.

I am already having to look at schools, some people say I should have done this when the boy was even younger but here I am.  A nursery we looked at is linked to a church.  Part of me is concerned that he has to thank god for his food and there is 'bible time'.  The nursery do also talk about other religions.  But then the other half of me feels comforted by this and I confess I quite like it.  I went to a Church of England school and it didn't do me any harm (I don't think!) Looking back I like the idea of the boy going to assemblies, learning about the stories in the Bible (from a child's prespective) and thanking someone (if it has to be God, ok) for his food, like I used to.

But I don't understand why.  I know I don't believe in God.  If the boy chooses to then I will fully support him and never question his faith (until he is old enough to have debates about politics and religion) but do I want to 'risk' this just because I like that it's his culture and tradition.  Is it reason enough to want him to have this because it's part of his heritage?  Or am I being a complete hypocrite and unfair to the people who really do believe?

I don't believe in God, I dislike the culture of the Church, it's money, it's 'cult' like sermons, and more recently it's statement against gay marriage.  But, there are elements of it that I find comforting; the feeling of belonging, some of the routines and rules and maybe just the familiarity.


There is a constant battle going on in my head - am I doing the right thing? I should stick to my principles. Does it really matter that much?  I don't suppose anybody has the answers to these questions except me....or do they? As someone once said "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction."





Monday 30 January 2012

...It's Child of a single parent.

I grew up in a single parent household.  I had one dad and my two sisters had another.  Both men had left my Mum to bring up a young family on her own.  My mum was lucky that she had a good support network around her and extended family she could call on in times of difficulty.  But life as a child from a lone parent family wasn’t easy.

It wasn’t just that money was tight (really tight), it was the stigma that was attached to being from this type of family and from what I can see nearly 20 years on, sadly nothing has changed.

I never blamed my mother for being a single parent.  Relationships break down, some perhaps could be worked at, but people make mistakes and while we should learn from them and face up to the consequences, what kind of country are we to turn our backs on people when they need it the most?  What is wrong with giving people a helping hand, a second chance, free of judgement and scorn?  Nobody is perfect; are all the mistakes you've ever made free of consequences for other people?

After my stepfather left when I was 13, mine and my family’s life changed.  We were middle class, had a nice house, went to a good school and I had never had to worry about money.  Suddenly I was in a queue for free school dinners with people I had always looked down my nose at, I was wearing trainers from the market and a second hand school uniform and was told we could no longer afford for me to go on school trips. 

By the time I was in my final year at school, I was in a well established single parent family and it was no secret.  I had many discussions with people in my sociology and psychology classes about being on benefits.  People weren’t shy about how disgusted they were at having to pay their taxes to make sure me and my family got to eat.  The general belief was that ‘your mum chose to have children, she should pay for them.’  And she was.  She worked, but on a minimum wage and with a baby to look after it still wasn’t enough to support a family of four.  It was my Mum’s choice to have three children by two different men, but she was married, was comfortable, and sadly perhaps a bad judge of character and no crystal ball (that I know of).  She didn’t choose to be left by her husbands, looking after young children.  Of course this isn’t the only way to become thrust into the world of single parenthood.

And this is what makes me angry the most.  The assumption by many people that their taxes are going to single mums just so they can have babies, stay at home and watch Jeremy Kyle.  These young women have seen the pound signs (those benefits are like winning the lottery don’t you know!) and thought, ‘I know I’m going to choose to have a baby, by myself (one of the hardest things anyone can do) and make everyone else pay’.  This just isn’t reality.  The huge majority of single parents (I am talking about Dads too) are a victim of circumstance, a mistake, a consequence of someone else’s decision.  And who is to say they are bad decisions!  I am so thankful that my mum and stepdad split up, they made a terrible couple, they would have made each other and us miserable, but hey, at least we wouldn’t have been sponging off the taxpayer!

The recent win in the House of Lords is a cause for celebration for women, but just a small one.  This government appears hell-bent on punishing poor, vulnerable women trying their hardest to raise a family at incredibly difficult times (not forgetting of course the Dads doing this to). Research by Women Against the Cuts, show that two thirds of the cuts made in the June budget came from women.

Speaking on behalf of the government, minister Lord De Mauley said “We don’t want to return to the days when the state is encouraging parents to blame each other.”  No, with the tone of their policies and who they are aimed at, the coalition government is encouraging people to blame single parents and women instead.