After the pink-shoe question of fall, 2005, (See blog entry “The Boy Who Likes Pink,” 10/3/05) it seemed the Pink Problem had gone away. Isaac started picking out things that were orange. I let him decide what color of sweatshirt to buy for the fall, and pink was right there in the choices. He picked orange. New jacket? Also orange. The shoes I ordered (navy with red trim) came in the mail. He put them on and pranced around without incident. It seemed that the whole Pink Issue was a thing of the past.
Not so. His fondness for the only pink towel in the house remained noticeable. Then one day I was offering him a choice of two shirts to wear. I think one was navy and the other heather gray. He suddenly started to cry. “Why I don’t have a pink one?” he demanded. Hm. Good question.
Then of course there was his imaginary pink gun.
He also developed an attraction to Brown. Okay. Great! Let’s get brown things! I can work with this. But… what he really wanted was pink AND brown, in combination. Brown alone seemed to only make him all the sadder, because its friend Pink was not there with it.
Meanwhile I read an article by a dad whose 4-year-old son insisted not just on wearing a pink shirt or pink shoes now and then, but a full-length pink velvet gown!! To play trucks in! Then I didn’t feel so bad about Isaac’s aesthetic sensibilities. I could put them in perspective. We’re getting off easy, it seems.
I mentioned to Ben, “Isaac wants a pink shirt.” And this time, instead of immediately rejecting the whole concept, Ben simply groaned and said, “Okay, whatever.” I could see that there was no more fight left in him on the topic. Through his long-term tenacity, Isaac had won out. Since I’ve never really had that much of a problem with the pink thing, this was all the green light I needed to get some pink items into the wardrobe. (He needs new clothes and shoes all the time, due to growth.) I searched around and then found them: converse hightops, in Isaac’s size, brown and pink combined!! Brown on the sides with a pink stripe up the back and a pink tongue. Now, back in the day, Ben himself used to wear converse hightops, and they as a brand have a certain grunge/punk mystique that I knew would work in my favor. I bought them. In fact, I bought two pairs (they’re cheap), one for now and one to grow into. (And since I’m buying them online, too, there’s no telling how they will fit. I can always send one back.)
I mentioned this to Ben and he smiled, “That’s great!” he said. The nostalgia thing seemed to work just perfectly. I mentioned this to Isaac, saying, “I ordered some new shoes for you from the computer. They’re brown and pink together!”
“Thank you!” he yelled, and began running joyful laps.
Thus emboldened I went to L.L.Bean and bought him a pink shirt. It’s a nice light pink golf shirt. Hey, he’s preppy on his dad’s side, right? Preppy guys wear these pastel colored golf/Izod shirts all the time. Isaac’s just starting a little young. I also, while I was at it, ordered him a t-shirt with pink and lavender stripes. What I noticed is that when it comes time to choose “boys’ clothing” or “girls’ clothing” at these sites, I had to click “girls'” to get the items in question. I felt like there was something… subversive about it. I was going undercover in the girls’ department, shopping for my son. (I remember David Sedaris writing hilariously about buying his own clothes in the petite women’s department, because he’s small in stature. Then one day he found himself standing at a urinal wearing pants that zipped up the back…)
All this is yet to arrive, coming today or tomorrow probably.
The good news is that we’ve made peace with Pink.
Will people think Isaac is a girl? Maybe. But sometimes they do anyway, and he’s about the boyest looking boy ever. People are like that. Whenever that has happened, it has not bothered Isaac in the least.
I think he’ll look smashing in his pink togs. He’ll wear them with pride, oblivious to the controversy, shouting from the rooftops “Pink is my best!”