“Eddie” for Ava, age 2
This little pink elephant named Eddie makes me think of an incident in Brooklyn a few years ago, when I was still living there. A mother found a little blue hat on the playground, and posted on the community yahoo parents group that she had found “a little boy’s blue hat” and wondered if anyone would like to come forward to claim it. There was HUGE uproar over her use of the word “boy’s” to describe the hat — I mean, a SHOCKING number of people wrote back with messages of hate and scorn. How dare she assume the blue hat was a boy’s, they asked. That’s Brooklyn parenting for you, in a nutshell. I mean, the poor woman – she was just trying to do a good deed. And you have to admit, when it comes to blue, pink, and little kids, it’s usually PRETTY clear where the gender divide lies. Which is why its so unique and interesting that Ava named her little pink elephant Eddie. She saw pink, she thought “boy” — how awesome is that?