If you go shopping in any toy store, you can see clearly the different games and toys for boys and girls: there are a lot of pink toys on one side of the store for girls; and dark-colored cars, guns and soldiers for boys. Some big stores with toys may even have a pink floor for girls and a blue floor for boys. In fact, it is difficult to buy a toy for a girl that is not pink.
Some people think that too much pink is bad for girls. Sue Palmer, writer of Toxic Childhood, is very worried that most girls over the age of three are crazy about the color. According to some scientists, this happens for two reasons. Firstly, most companies offer too many products in pink. Also, many parents think their little daughter looks cute in pink. Sue Palmer says that girls at this age cannot make proper decisions by themselves, but the pink can affect the choices and the decisions they will make in the future.
Some parents are worried too—for example, Vanessa Holburn, thirty-two, who has two girls under the age of four. Their bedrooms are a sea of pink and Vanessa is not happy. "Pink says that you are soft and gentle. Blue says that you are strong and powerful. I want my daughters to be strong and powerful. I'm worried that pink will not help them withthat," she says.
But not everyone thinks there's something wrong with pink. Grayson Turner is a father of three girls and he isn't worried at all. "People forget that things change all the time," he says. "My girls used to love pink when they were little, but as they get older, they change." Turner explains that his twelve-year-old daughter never wears pink clothes anymore. "This love of pink is just a fashion and all fashions change," he adds. "It's only since the 1940s that people have started dressing girls in pink—before that it was a color for boys."
