Happy Birthday, Bü, with both pink and blue

It's the birthday of my father-in-law, Friedrich: happy birthday, Bü! Last year I posted one of my favorite family photos, a picture of Friedrich (on the left) with his older brother Peter. (He looks so much like Jack in this photo.) They were the two oldest boys in a large family, born in the late 20s in Germany.

Bü's birthday coincided with a message from Lois, a friend of my mother's (who, like my mom, spent her childhood and youth in North Dakota). She shared this, on the topic of color coding for infants:

Your blog on the color pink reminds me of my bewilderment when I first paged through my Aunt Sophy's scrapbook from the 1920s. It contained all sorts of memorabilia as well as yellowing newspaper fragments relating to engagements, weddings, and births among her long gone circle of friends. At first, I felt mildly embarrassed for the printers in North Dakota who obviously hadn't a clue that pink was for girls, blue for boys--or perhaps they were color blind. 

My cousin Rodney's birth announcement (ca. 1926) [posted at the right] shows a baby swaddled in a pink-flowered blanket, and tucked into a pink basket! There were several announcements, and the color scheme was consistent. At last I went to the Internet and found that until about 1950, pink, as a watered down shade of red, a manly color, was assigned to boys; blue was considered more delicate, as well as being the color of the Virgin's robe, and hence more suitable for girls. I was so pleased to have the job printers of my home state vindicated! 

Lois also sent this photo of Pulmonaria, noting that its pink buds open to blue blooms: "best of both worlds." Thank you, Lois!

One little p.s. – it's so lovely to receive messages via email from readers,  especially when they include images and observations like this one. If you have a topic, link, video, or story that reminds you of with a blogpost here, please don't hesitate to contact me: ellenkmichel[at]gmail[dot]com.

Pink 'R' Us Grrrrls

As we all know, girls of all ages prefer pink to any other color, from the minute they are born – or before, when they signal to their mothers the need for pink nurseries. So thank goodness we can now get classic board games in pink: from Scrabble to Monopoly to the Ouija board. Gender-specific versions of these games can be found "only at Toys 'R' Us." Mystery Date and LIFE also come in pink editions.

Eeeew, as Summer would say on The O.C. How many points for g-r-o-s-s?

The "Designer's Edition" of Scrabble spells out the words "fashion" (natch) and "fun game" on its cover: "Every word's a winner!" in this perverse beauty contest for words. Here is the official product description:

A timeless classic with a modern makeover, this pink SCRABBLE Deluxe Designer's Edition has style, taste and elegant accessories like a pastel rotating gameboard, pearlescent letter tiles and embroidered fabric pouch. All the fashionable game pieces are designed with a woman in mind, but with the same SCRABBLE challenge you know and love. Just choose 7 of the unique locking letter tiles, and start spelling - this Designer's Edition has a flair for F-U-N! Includes rotating gameboard with textured frame and raised letter grid, molded letter tiles that fit in place, 4 matching tile racks, zippered storage pouch, scorepad, pencil and instructions.

The Monopoly game comes packaged like a jewelry box. Meanwhile, at a more aesthetically progressive Target store, a temporary price cut on "Boys' Toys," also known as the Lego corner.

Thanks to Gwen and Abby over at Sociological Images: Seeing is Believing, where there is an interesting comment thread for this post. As one person observes, the pink Ouija board box looks at first glance like packaging for "feminine hygiene products." And yes, that spinner on the game of LIFE does look like a packet of birth control pills.

Eeeew again. I just found yet another version of pink Scrabble, this time as a "worthy partnership" for the cure for breast cancer. "Every word counts towards breast cancer awareness." I won't even comment on that.

I couldn't recall playing the disturbin' game "Mystery Date" as a kid, so I did a little search and came up with this Special 2008 Election edition of its 1960s television ad. (Kind of ironic that the first door should open to reveal John Edwards.)