I’m disappointed in myself. I preach one thing and acted another this morning.
While walking up to the grocery store, my 2 year-old son saw two racing car shopping carts. One was black and one was pink. I immediately starting walking him to the black one. He said, “No, no, no, me want the pink one.”
I stopped, looked at him, and said, “Sweetie, don’t you want the black one?”
He shook his head furiously and said, “No, mommy, me wants the pink one. Please????”
I tried again to get him into the black one but he was insistent on wanting the pink one.
Finally, I caught myself. Why did I care what color cart he got into? I realized that it wasn’t that I cared about the color, but I cared what other people would think. I want to believe that I’m not the type of person that worries about that stuff, but it’s sometimes just not true.
However, I stopped those thoughts from taking over, put him in the pink cart and watched his face light up from excitement.
And I pushed that cart with a proudest smile on my face.
I realized that I caught myself falling into the trap of what our kids “should” like because society seems to push it on us and instead just let my kid pick out his own cart. Pink with flowers and all.
And maybe he’ll hate me for putting the picture up on the blog someday. But I couldn’t resist. Maybe it will help the world embrace pink flower carts for boys. And maybe it will stop one mom from having that moment of judgment like I did.
And side note: how damn cute does he look in it? I might just have to steal that cart from the parking lot one night and surprise him with it in his room…though I’ll probably have to get the black one too for his sister.
