"Little girls wear pink"

my maternal grandmother informed me as I told her I did not want to wear pink, that I did not like pink, that I wanted a blue dress. 

"Blue is for boys," she told me.

"It's for girls too!" 

I can remember being smacked hard for saying that. Nana was determined that I would be a "little girl" and that I would wear something pink and frilly. 

I still "hate" pink and frills. 

Nana made the dress of course. That is how things were done then. Your mother or your grandmother or your aunt or someone you knew made your clothes. There were now chains of Target or KMart or BigW back then.

I can remember that dress. It was made from a cotton fabric I think was called "haircord" and it was printed with tiny pink roses all over it. Yes, it was "pretty" I suppose. I remember the same fabric and same design also came in other colours, blue, yellow and possibly green. I would have been happy enough with blue or yellow. I did not like pink. Add in a frill of broderie anglaise "lace" that Nana thought looked "very nice" and I loathed it. The frill tickled.

It was my "other" dress. It was not my Sunday dress. That was green robia spot voile and smocked across the yoke. The smocking was not there just for decoration. It was there to make the garment last from one summer to the next. I wore it when I was two and then when I was three. The hem must have been lowered but I remember nothing of that. 

Yes, I was arguing about not wearing pink at age two. We were in the drapers which was just down the road from where my paternal grandparents lived. Nana must have come down on the train from the other side of the city. My mother was there. My paternal grandmother was there and Nana was there. Nana would get her way of course. If she did not then she would sulk and not do a good job of the dress. (She  was a good dressmaker.) 

I was reminded of this yesterday when a three year old I know appeared in front of me. She was wearing a pair of overalls that were a miniature version of an adult workman's work overalls. There was a spanner in one of the pockets and a small hammer in another. Her mother smiled and shrugged and said, "Her choice. I thought she might want to wear the pink ballet skirt."

"No, today is work. I am going to work," we were told.

As a garment the overalls were very practical apart from the difficulty of getting them on again if she "needed to go". She can pull them off her shoulders but not get them on again. Fair enough. They get flung in the washing machine. There is no need to worry about "spoiling" them. Oh, I would have loved to wear those.

Nana went on insisting I wear pink and that meant Middle Cat wore pink because clothes were passed down.  We had other clothes of course. Clothes were often passed around until they were no longer fit to be worn. Other pink things must have appeared but I do not remember them in the way I remember having to wear a pink frilly dress because it was what Nana wanted. 

Much later I remember my mother buying two dresses for my sisters. They must have been "on special", perhaps shop samples, from a drapery that was regarded as rather "exclusive". I do remember the sale sign across the window because of a black mark on it. It was still rare to buy clothing that way but those dresses were good. One was the colour of milk coffee. The other was a very pale teal. Both were embroidered around the borders but must have had deep hems as well. They lasted my sisters a long time, the way clothes were meant to last.  Me? Nana had made me yet another pink dress. It was made from pink nylon and "it doesn't need ironing". I loathed it but had to wear it. 

Grandma had brought up two boys and knew about practical clothing. She made shorts and overalls and knitted us traditional ganseys in the pattern her mother in law taught her. We girls had smocked dresses for "best" but there was never anything pink apart from the pink in the grub roses embroidered into the smocking.

Years later Grandma and I talked about this and she told me, "Your grandmother was dressing herself, not you." 

She was right. I still don't wear pink.