At one point pink was considered more of a boy's color, (as a watered-down red, which is a fierce color) and blue was more for girls. The associate of pink with bold, dramatic red clearly affected its use for boys. An American newspaper in 1914 advised mothers, "If you like the color note on the little one's garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention." [2]"There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." [3]
Anyway, back to today's styles, I think some of this long-term fashion trend might explain why some friends were frustrated we weren't finding out the gender - you either commit to the possibility of cross-dressing the baby (for shame!), or you can't get arbitrary pieces of clothing, bedding, playsets, or even diapers in some cases. It went so far that at one point, we found some blankets or bibs or something that we liked, added them to a registry, and folks leaped to conclusions about the baby's gender from their color.
I for one have many other colors in my wardrobe, and I don't consider myself much of a fashionista. Admittedly, I haven't had any pink since an Izod shirt in the 90s, but still...
All of this leads in to the power of the apparently single gender-neutral baby color, namely green. We painted the baby's room the color of our blog title bar (kudos to Justine for the excellent color pallette throughout the site, by the way!), a green the good folks at Behr Paints call 'peridot' (though apparently anything but in actual color, since here's peridot the precious stone):
As a happy coincidence, peridot happens to be the August birthstone, so if the baby is a few days late...
On the other hand, if the baby is on time or early, July's birthstone is ruby. That's, like, *so* girly.
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