Going with Her "Girly"-Self...

Honesty time... I used to TOTALLY judge parents of little girls who seemed really girly. Hair clips? Heave. Excessive use of pink? Bluergh. Dollies with their own pink frilly dresses? Gross. I'd read a Huffington Post article on reinforcing feminine stereotypes and blinkers their options... I even stormed around for my entire last pregnancy telling family members "if it's a girl, DON'T BUY ME PINK!"

Oh but the pink came. And all my convictions were feeble against their powers. Pink, flowers, butterflies, frills! She had it all and so much of the neutral attire slid to the back of the wardrobe.

Skip a few months until she can sit up and in the mornings I would sit her on the floor or bed with some toys whilst I get ready. But when I did she wasn't interested in the toys, she was interested in what I was doing. My hair and make-up fascinated her. Jump forward again and she's crawling over to me at my dressing table, pulling on my trousers for attention so I give her a hair brush or powder puff to play with. To be clear, the only thing through my head right now is "Quick! Amuse her so I can actually get some mascara on today!" Leap to now and whenEVER we are upstairs all she wants to is sit at my dressing table and mimic mummy. She wants to clap-clap the (cold) straighteners over her little head of hair. She wants to powder her nose with my bronzing brush. She wants to pretend rub moisturiser over her face...

She's. Just. Such. A... "Girly girl".

Recently she discovered the pink, sequinned, miniature purse her Nanny gave me for her over a year ago with £10 of holiday spending in for our trip to Portugal. Since then I've kept it in the bottom of my nappy bag and used it to store any gift money any family members have sent over. Until she found it... Now it's her handbag. That she wants to take everywhere. How did I become the Mum with the 17 month old who's walking into her swimming lessons with a handbag!?! 

Then there's the dolls we've never bought her but she finds everywhere. She's way more drawn to the pink bunny teddy over the brown bear I picked out in pregnancy.

There's an age old nature vs nurture debate to be had here... Though there's a lot going on here I am positive has been far from encouraged. Can you hear the defence in that? Why does something in this make me cringe?

Broken down it's role play, it's my beautiful daughter looking up to me, if I can imagine for a second everyone around me isn't looking at me like I would have looked at me 17 months ago... It is cute! She hasn't lost her childhood to mobile phones, Facebook and lipgloss! I know I'm getting ahead of myself with the worry... But I'm still not cool with it.

Then the other day I read this... A nice post from a Daddy blogger who doesn't want to make his son "toughen up", his son is a sensitive soul and he concludes in his post he's cool with that and he's going to be the type of parent who lets his son be who he wants to be.

Kudos Daddy Down Under. Me too.

Is this going to be the last time she's into stuff I'm not totally cool with? No. But it's not harming her, it's even arguably a very healthy expression of her role playing Mummy. And I want to be the kind of parent who loves what she loves and loves her all the more for it. So from this day forward she can take her "handbag" where ever she likes and all the while I'm going to praise that she has something she's in to...

Of course there are boundaries for this on the horizon. Of course I want to keep alternatives to pink, glitter and fairies hanging around the place. Of course this doesn't mean I'll be encouraging fake tan at the age of 5 *shudder*.

But for now... Go with your girly-self Euna chops! I may even dig out some fairy wings from my hen night memorabilia box... 

 28 week post here...