Do Real Men Wear Yellow?
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A couple of nights ago, my wife tricked me into enlisted my help in going through the seemingly endless supply of infant clothing we had from our daughter in what was expected to be the first wave of organization in the now-uninhabited nursery. Our plan was simple: go through the first set of clothing and identify how much gender-neutral stuff we had for the baby we are expecting in October, who is supposedly a boy (although we have not received 100% confirmation of this fact yet).
As we opened each massive Rubbermaid bin, the flood of memories any normal person would anticipate hit us. We pulled out the sleeper she wore after her first bath, a surprisingly gender-neutral one based on the children’s book Guess How Much I Love You, that will almost certainly be worn by her younger brother. We found clothes my mother purchased that turned out to be too “boyish” for us to dress our daughter in. We pulled out articles of clothing we had forgotten but immediately recalled when she wore it and who had given it to us over three years ago once we saw it.
When we were finished, all the pink, light purple, flowers, hearts, and frilly collars were packed away in bins that will eventually bear the label “girl” and reside in the basement instead of the nursery closet. We were left with a little bit of blue (since it is my wife’s favourite colour, some people bought blue outfits for our daughter), some white and green, and a whole lot of yellow. I mean, I think we could dress this kid in yellow every day and every night for a couple of weeks (including mid-day changes for spit-up) and not need to do laundry.
My mind started to wander. We’ve got a lot of clothes for this baby already. Do we really need that much more? But, if we don’t get much more, then this kid will be in yellow most of the time, and if he’s in yellow, how many people are going to make the mistake of calling my son “her” when we’re out in public? Should we be considering a whole new, all blue, brown, and green wardrobe? Isn’t that impractical? I asked my wife for her thoughts, and she confirmed my suspicions: that we would likely get a few blue outfits, but that the predominant colour will be yellow for the first little while. As soon as we pass the six month barrier our gender neutral selection drops dramatically.
Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I am by no means saying that yellow is “wrong” for a boy. (My security blanket from when I was a young boy was yellow, for one thing.) I am just unsure how many people dress their boys in tons of yellow, and how many feel strongly that blues and greens and browns are more “appropriate” for baby boys.
What are your thoughts on the topic of clothing colours? How did you dress your infant sons? Did you use primarily blue, or were a lot of other colours included? Specifically looking at yellow, were the majority of yellow clothes you had from pre-natal gifts when people didn’t know the gender or older sisters, or were they choices you consciously made when purchasing clothing for your infant son? Is the notion of “blue is for boys” antiquated?
Kimberly says...
My 5 week old son wears almost entirely blue, red, green, brown, etc. He is really long and just graduated into the 3-6 month sized sleepers (things with feet he is wearing huge sizes because of his length.) These were handed down to us by a friend who has both a girl and a boy and they are yellow with cute little giraffes and elephants on them. There is certainly nothing girlish at all about these jammies, and jammies are only worn in the house and when no one else is here but me and my husband. Yet every night that we’ve dressed Henry for bed we keep saying to each other, “We’ve got to go out and get some new jammies.” I have no idea why we feel this way, but your post makes me think that we subscribe to the notion that yellow might be a little too “girlish.” I suppose it is old-fashioined, but on my to-do list for tomorrow is a trip to get new jammies.
MrsH says...
It only matters what others think if it matters to you. And i”m not being critical, it matters to me sometimes :). My husband though, he doesn’t care. When I said we’d have to buy more blue and such if we have a boy next time he shrugged and said our boy could wear pink. And he was serious. Hehe.
MamaMia says...
Blue for boys and Pink for girls is a very Western concept. If you see Asian countries, this is not there. Particularly in India bright colors are preferred for babies as opposed to pastel colors. I guess that is the only age we can dress them how we want. Later it is going to be according to their wish..so dress them up as you want now.
With my baby boy (who is 2 months now), I used my older daughters (2 years now) clothes and I did use some of the purple and pink onsies as I kept him swaddled almost all the time. So it never mattered how he was dressed inside. But yes, on occassions when he needed to go out or needed to be photographed, I went with Yellow,blue,Green and brown.
Dawn Allcot says...
I am having the same questions/concerns, albeit reversed. We just picked up an infant swing ($5!!!) but it is blue and yellow plaid–kind of masculine. We just found out we are having a girl. I’m debating if I should Freecycle the swing to a little boy or just deal with it (she won’t know, after all!)
Our bassinet is more of a gender-neutral green and blue plaid (yes, it actually looks more gender neutral, since it’s lighter colors) but I was having misgivings about this, too.
To answer your question, I think yellow, since it really is neutral, is fine for boys and you can “accessorize” with more boy-ish things… such as hats and a diaper bag and sweaters and such that are more “boyish,” but still match.
Of course, a lot of this is a personal financial decision, too… if it bothers you that much and you can afford more clothes, go for it! if it really would make things tight, or that money could be better spent on other things the baby really needs, then don’t worry about his yellow wardrobe.
brit says...
I dressed my son in yellow - he’s two and still has yellow shirts, they have dinosaurs on, though! Even when I dressed him in blue and shirts with trucks on, people still asked me what “her” name was. So i don’t really think outfits matter anyway.