Day 53: ‘Let girls be girls’

TODAY’S blog follows a visit to the hallowed ground of the East Midlands Designer Outlet this weekend.

When Mark returned Erin’s little push-around car back to the ‘car lot’, he came rushing back to let me know about the latest ‘attack of the baby girl headgear’.

I’ll explain. 

Ever since our first visit to the baby clinic when Erin was a few weeks’ old, Mark and I have noticed there are two camps when it comes to mothers of girls - I’m saying mothers, not to alienate the fathers, but to distance them from what I can imagine had very little to do with them.

There’s the mothers who, like me, will pretty much put their little girls in anything, pink, blue, green or red, and generally opts for sleep suits until they’re old enough to sit up.

Then there’s the mothers who like to make absolutely sure that everyone knows their little girl is definitely a little girl, however many accessories that takes! 

The first baby clinic we went to, there was a girl, around six weeks old I think, cause Erin was the same age. When she was being weighed in her birthday suit, she looked a picture - beautiful.

However, while Erin and the others were dressed in their sleep suits and vests, this little munchkin had more paraphernalia than a float at the Nottinghill Carnival! She was dragged into a frilly pink tutu, a cardigan that appeared to have been made out of a feather boa, sparkly booties and a headband that had a large flower protruding from it, with thin strips of bright pink ribbon cascading from the petals, and spending most of their time flopping into her eyes. 

My first thought wasn’t: “Oh bless that little girl, she looks so fancy.” It was more like: “Oh that poor little baby, she must be fed up with those ribbons falling into her face, and must be desperate to stretch her toes out.”

I know it’s not fair to judge other parents’ actions, we all have our own way - I’ve been told a number of times that Erin doesn’t look girlie enough, so I understand we can’t please everyone. 

I just wish people would understand how simply beautiful their little ones are - every single one of them. They don’t need dressing up like a Christmas tree to prove they’re a girl, if someone feels they have to ask, it’s not an insult, they just don’t want to get it wrong.