The boy loves pink

Kellen is struggling to learn his colors.  Green and blue?  No interest in distinguishing them.  Red? Who cares. Purple and pink? He's got it down!

Kellen loves, loves pink.  He likes wearing his pink polo and pointing out my pink pajama pants. He screams if he can't eat his yogurt with his pink spoon.  And given a choice, he'd probably pick a pink balloon over a more "boyish" color like blue or red.  The only color dragon he recognizes in his dragon book is the purple one.

I've thought a lot about this in light of the story about the parents who aren't sharing the gender of their child.

I love pink.  It shouldn't be a big deal if my son does too... not to mention it's a great color on him.  I'm known to have feminist leanings.  This shouldn't bother me.  For the most part it doesn't.  I actually think it's kind of funny that he's picked up on pink as his favorite color.

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It has made me question some gender stereotypes though.  How would I feel if he wanted me to paint his room pink?  And even if I think it's ok, how would his grandparents react?  If I tell someone my son likes pink, will they automatically start to question his sexuality, as though our wavelength preference has something to do with our biological preferences?  And who even decided that estrogen had a monopoly on such a vibrant and diverse color?

I know there will come a time, probably soon, where someone lets Kellen know that pink isn't an appropriate favorite color for a child who loves the sound of a roaring monster truck and who turns mountains into dragons.  And even if he still secretly likes pink, I know he'll tell me he likes blue... or worse, black.  And then do I push pink just because I want to tell societal conventions to leave my son alone?

I mean, I don't get the family keeping the gender a secret.  It seems like an awfully cruel experiment just to prove a point... one that we largely know exists anyway.  But there are some moments, like this, where I wish being a boy or girl didn't matter so much.  Kellen should get to love pink just because it's awesome (it is, you should see my wardrobe).  All the other boys can have blue.