Check out artist JeongMee Yoon's "The Pink and Blue Project" here.
I found this really interesting. When I was pregnant I made such an effort to avoid buying "girl-coloured" clothing that I realized later that my baby daughter had more boyish clothing than girly clothing.
Now, I don't try so hard. I buy what I think is cute. But I do try to avoid amassing a ton of pink and purple crap and so far I am desperately avoiding commercial stuff - such as Disney Princess everything.
I know that as Babe gets older she is going to have her own preferences and I fear they may lean towards the sparkly and pastel. But if that's the case I'll remind myself that it's just a faze and I'll suck it up.
My Mom was so wary of commercial brand toys that I rarely got anything I really wanted. It wasn't that I wasn't spoiled. I was. But I didn't have Barbies and Cabbage Patch Dolls, she wanted to avoid buying toys like that, which were so heavily marketed towards children regardless of their actual educational or entertainment value.
Now I totally get why she did it, but at the time I was dying to have the same things my friends had. And she must've told my friend's parents about her beliefs because while the other kids got hoards of My Little Ponies at their birthday parties, I always got art kits. I would think my birthday party would be my only opportunity to get a "commercial toy" because surely my friends would get me one...but it never happened. But now I'm glad I was different.
Speaking of hoarding toys, I don't know if this was the artist's intention at all, but equally as interesting as the colour of the toys is the sheer amount of them. It's pretty gross to see the excess of possessions a child has. And my kid is no better.
Her next series should be comparing the treasures of one Western child with those of a third world child.
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