No More Pink Baseball Gloves!

The title of this post is my spin on the famous “no more wire hangers” scene from the movie Mommy Dearest. I think I’m a pretty patient and loving mom. But I have to say, if I ever see the aforementioned sporting good in my house I might go a little Mommy Dearest on someone myself.

Let me explain. I like pink. I’ve owned a couple of pink t-shirts in my day. I used to pretend I was one of the Pink Ladies from Grease. But I don’t know how or why pink has become the defining color of girlhood. Shirts, pants, dresses, bathing suits, shoes, shorts, potty chairs, tennis rackets, golf clubs, bicycles, all covered in flowers or butterflies, Disney princesses, Dora, or Hannah Montana. It is hard to shop for girls at a mainstream retail store and find something that is not pink with a princess on it. It’s no better for boys, who have the choice of blue or green, dog or shark, or Diego or Spiderman. The commercialism and the pink each make me crazy in their own special ways, and every time I go shopping for something for the girls, I end up gnashing my teeth and shaking my fist at the marketing gods.

I will admit I am a little biased against girly things – I scorned dresses as a girl; they got in the way of chasing boys and playing football, and I felt ridiculous (and angry) every time my mother forced one on me. My favorite thing to do as a young child was to sit outside and get dirty making sand castles and mudpies, and when I was a little older I liked to shoot hoops, ride my (red) bike, or climb a tree and pretend I was Harriet the Spy. My absolute favorite thing of all was to play catch with my well-worn brown leather glove (which was actually a hand-me-down from the boy next door, adding to its cache). I was proud the day I got hit in the mouth with a baseball thrown a little too fast by that neighbor, leaving me the biggest fat lip of my life, and I was disappointed it was summer so I couldn’t show off my injury at school. I loved playing t-ball, then softball; I was good at both, and playing those sports is one of my fondest childhood memories.

So let’s bring all that history of me into Target on that fateful day last month. Twin Daddy was looking for a toddler-sized soccer ball for the girls. I was browsing the sporting goods aisles, dreaming of the day when my girls would play in the mud and get hit in the face with baseballs. Then suddenly -BAM- I saw it, sitting on a peg. A pink baseball glove. I wasn’t sure if I would vomit or if my head would explode, so I put my hands on the side of my head and bent my chin to my chest to collect myself. Then I went and found Twin Daddy and unleashed a rampage on him, about how baseball was about being strong and running and catching and practicing and sweating and not about collecting flowers in right field with your f*%^$*# pink baseball glove.

He didn’t pay me much mind, as he was too busy trying to find a small soccer ball free of sparkly butterflies or blue sharks.