Baby clothes with a message

Today Little Dude is wearing a cute, warm outfit that happens to have the following message written across the front: "My Favorite Things: Basketball, Dinosaurs, and Really Fast Cars". He has a lot of clothes that proclaim things about himself, like that he's an "All Star" an "MVP" and even a "Little Lumberjack". I think it's kind of strange how we project our own ideas onto babies like that. Maybe it's because they are so mute and so neutral that we want them to start taking sides. When I went to my conference last month one of the other grad students who went with us brought her baby as well. Her little girl is just a few weeks older than Little Dude, and one day we dressed them both in jeans and matching T-shirts that said "La Vida es Sueno" (the shirts were given to all the grad students with kids by some cool professors of ours). It was funny to see people's reactions--despite the fact that the babies looked exactly the same, when told their genders the reactions were invariably things like "what a sweet little girl" and "what a big, handsome boy". The kids were the exact same size, and these were mostly women who specialize in things like gender theory and women's writing. Even though I hate gender stereotypes, I unconsciously do the same thing too. I find the sports-themed baby clothes particularly ironic, since neither Master Fob or I have anything to do with sports whatsoever. I spent ten years in Provo without ever attending a BYU football game (I did go to a few rugby matches to watch my cousins play). Sometimes I joke that we need more shirts for Little Dude that say "I love books" or "English Major in Training" or even "Future Jeopardy! Champ". But then again, we're projecting. Maybe he will grow up to own a construction company, play football, or be a lumberjack. At least if he does we can just blame his baby clothes.

Comments

AmyJane said…
Never quite thought of it that way... I'm justy grateful that boy clothed seem to get cuter all the time. Although I still can't wait to doll up a baby girl. :)

BTW, Patrick had that same little Carter's outfit, when he was little (3-6 months maybe?).
11/13/2006 11:11 AM
Cricket said…
I love "English Major in training" That is perfect(especially living on Campus)
11/13/2006 11:57 AM
Christian said…
Just as a semantical note (and to play a bit of the Devil's advocate), I find it interesting that if he becomes a lumberjack, you're "blaming" the baby clothes instead of "crediting" them.
11/13/2006 2:57 PM
Melyngoch said…
Yeah, I'm fully in favor of him growing up into a lumberjack (and he's okay . . . )
11/13/2006 2:58 PM
svoid said…
Computer geeks have already got this covered:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/kids/
11/13/2006 5:33 PM
Lady Steed said…
Maybe it's a huge backlash against how in Victorian days little boys and girls were dressed exactly the same till they were like five. And usually that clothing succeeded in making the little boy look more like a girl than a boy.

Maybe?
11/13/2006 6:55 PM
Celia Marie (W.) B. said…
Svoid, that's an amazing link. If I had a child I would buy some of that stuff.

I think, though, that just covers the computer geeks. Has anyone cornered the book worm market for kids' clothing?

Foxy, I think you should pitch it to the Little Einstein company to come out with a line of baby clothes with that theme. And demand a cut.
11/13/2006 9:43 PM
Anonymous said…
I always dressed Lola in blues and browns as a baby. It went better with her red hair. Never, ever did she wear pink (until she hit 4, and refused to wear anything that didn't look like it was washed in Pepto Bismol). I also cut her hair regularly, and it was an adorable little curly mop. Anyway, even if she was wearing a dress, people would comment on what a cute little boy she was. Whatever.

I purposely didn't allow any clothing with pictures or words on them. They were all stereotyping, and they all made me sick. But then again, th. wasn't designing clothing at that time. Perhaps he could set you (your kids) up?
11/14/2006 9:42 AM
skyeJ said…
When I hit high school, I was five ten in tenth grade. Everyone told me "You should play volleyball. You should play basketball. You'd be SO good." I joined the swim team on purpose because it WASN'T basketball or volleyball. I didn't want to do those other things for the very reason that people were always telling me to. What did THEY know? Perhaps those shirts don't have the power we are all afraid they do. Perhaps what we're scared of is really that the person inside the shirt will be weak and not strong. Scared to be what he wants to be and not what everyone always tells him he should be. I think the answer isn't in the clothing. If the clothes are that important, then I think you're just giving them more power than they deserve. Clothes don't make the man. Or Jeopardy! champ.

I'm a lumberjack and I'm OKAAAAY!!!
11/15/2006 5:25 AM
Anonymous said…
My husband specifically forbade anything to do with sports. (Being a non-sports-ish guy himself) Somehow, we ended up getting a lot of dragons instead. And people are still afraid to get him any clothes because we might reject them.

Now that we have a girl, I forbade princess-y things. If she picks it one her own, fine. If it were more "A Little Princess" Princess, I think I'd be more amenable, but the Disney ones drive me up a wall.
11/30/2006 5:50 PM
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