Feb 8, 2012  •  In Claire, Cute, Parenting, Personal

Toddlers and Tiaras: Claire Edition

We do our best not to push our girls into stereotypical gender roles or characteristics. And while we would secretly love it if they turn into tomboys, we never force them to play (or not play) with certain toys and encourage them to allow their own preferences to develop.

As it turns out, our 16-month-old Claire is becoming the exact opposite of a tomboy.

She is, in fact, turning into a frilly girl.

Our suspicions started about a month ago, when we began to let her “choose” her own clothes. (We give her an option of weather- and activity-appropriate clothes to choose from.) And wouldn’t you know it — she would ALWAYS pick something pink.

And just in case it was a fluke —

“Why don’t we wear this pretty blue one instead? Or this brown one?”

She would vehemently shake her head and reach for the pink. ALWAYS.


(image source)

Now that her hair is getting long enough to pin up, we have started to put to use the many hair pins and barrettes we have received as gifts. She loves them and asks us to put them in her hair every morning. She will then take the leftovers and try to put them in my hair, as well as Aerin’s.

She has a jade bangle bracelet that J’s mother gifted to her when she was born…and insists on wearing this every day too. She even shows it off to strangers!

She poses in front of the mirror. She watches intently whenever I put on makeup (and loves it when I take a makeup brush and fluff it over her face). She is fascinated by jewelry, and I can already picture her a year or two down the road, playing dress up and draping all of mommy’s jewelry over herself.

Last week was Aerin’s 100th Day Celebration, so I decided to splurge a little and bought both girls adorable dresses from Baby Gap. When I came home and showed Claire her dress, her eyes lit up by about 100 watts. She laughed, and buried her face into her new dress. She took my hand and led me into her room, and motioned for me to change her.

The dress I had chosen for Claire has a tulle lining that makes the skirt fluff out. She absolutely adored this feature and kept playing with the skirt of the dress, swishing it back and forth. She wouldn’t stop giggling and repeatedly posed in front of the mirror. She spent the next hour or so walking back and forth between the mirror in her room to the mirror in J and my room to check herself out.

And when it came time to take off the dress? Banshees wailing. Niagara Falls. I couldn’t remember the last time she cried this hard.

Yep, we definitely have a girly girl on our hands. 

I cannot help but wonder where she developed these early preferences. Magazines? The little amount of TV we allow her to watch? Observing how others dress and present themselves? We have certainly not purposely encouraged these partialities, but could we have subconsciously done it?

Are we disappointed? Hardly. There are so many things that parents wish for their kids, but we never love them any less for not fulfilling them. If anything, we just see these instances as mere surprises.

Besides, as J — the metrosexual — likes to say, “Hopefully, now there will be at least one female in the household who cares about fashion and likes to go shopping with me!”

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13 Responses to “Toddlers and Tiaras: Claire Edition”

  1. Allie says:

    Aw, that’s adorable. 🙂 I’ve always loved pink too, and to this day if I have an option to buy something pink, I will choose it over any other color! Nothing wrong with that, and it sounds like ya’ll have a healthy way of dealing with preferences!

  2. Alice says:

    This is too funny!!

    I’m the complete opposite, total tomboy over here! Pink – don’t own anything in that color. I always contemplate how I will raise a daughter if she’s girlie. Good thing I have girlie girlfriends. Maybe they can help me out. Ha!

  3. Mina says:

    that is really, really cute.

  4. Sheila says:

    Adorable! I always wished for a girly girl, and ended up with the most rough and tumble little boy ever! 🙂

  5. Brooke says:

    That’s so sweet! I can’t believe she’s developing such a strong little personality already. I already know it will be trouble if my daughter grows into a girly girl. I chopped off all my hair so I’d never have to style it, only wear makeup once a month if that (and only eyes and lip gloss) and never found fashion appealing. So she certainly wouldn’t learn it by example! Haha. But I love that you’re embracing her personality no matter your own personal preferences. I think that alone will give her so much confidence as she grows up!

  6. Amanda says:

    So cute! I think it’s definitely one of those things some girls are just born with!! 🙂

  7. zoe says:

    oh my gosh, that was absolutely adorable. 🙂 I was very much the same way as a child, entertaining myself for hours just changing my outfits and checking them out in the mirror.

  8. I am so worried that this is going to happen to me! Not worried in a bad way…just fearful that I will be unprepared for a pink, clothes-loving little NON-mini me! I don’t think that you did anything to encourage this behavior. My mom has a friend with a little girl, and that child came out of the womb being a girly-girl! Maybe stereotypes started for a reason.

  9. Emily Jayne says:

    I love that she was trying to share with you and Aerin! Truly the makings of great big sister 🙂

  10. MrsW says:

    Something you said in this stood out to me (beyond the hilarious description of Claire posing in the mirror – so cute!): “I cannot help but wonder where she developed these early preferences.”
    I’m so, so much quicker to look at my child (or someone else’s child… even when they aren’t children anymore!) and assign their traits, habits, level of politeness or sympathy, etc, to nurture rather than nature. And while I think nurture is a huge influence in our kids’ lives, I have to remind myself to make room in my thinking for my daughter’s nature, and realize that maybe she’s just going to be afraid of bugs no matter how I acted about bugs around her. Etc etc. In a way, I would love it if she really were just a blank slate that I could help to influence and shape totally through my nurture; but in reality, that’s WAY too intimidating and high-pressure for me to live up to as an imperfect mom, so I’m glad that there are some things about her that just “come naturally”.

    I’m still smiling over Claire and her dress reaction.. I thought my girl was girly but I’ve never gotten quite THAT strong of a reaction from her yet! 🙂

  11. We have the SAME issue. And I was originally the mom who swore her mother would never wear pink, so definitely not getting it from me! (Either nature or nurture…) In fact, at not-yet-3 she already criticizes me for the lack of high heels in my wardrobe. And she hates/avoids other kids, so definitely not from peers. I’ve heard theories that kids enforce super-gendered stereotypes as they’re learning boys vs girls and want to assert their identity, but she hasn’t figured out there’s a difference yet so no go there. Somehow pink and sparkles and tiaras just seem to be the female equivalent of the boys who are carefully kept away from violence yet somehow turn every inanimate object into a gun.

    And don’t get me started on fighting the Princess Parade! Hopeless. Luckily, she has lately decided that she is a ballerina, so at least I’m trying to get her into ballerina skirts and away from the princess tiaras.

  12. Claire says:

    Oh, what a cutie she is! I’d love to see a photo of both girls in their Baby Gap dresses soon – I bet they look adorable!!

  13. Aw that’s so adorable!!

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