The Boy Who Loved Pink

It’s true – my son loves the colour pink! Ever since he could identify colours he has always had a preference for pink.

Just today, we took him to a birthday party where the children could do sand art. After choosing a picture, we started peeling off the paper and pouring the coloured sand. As expected, he headed straight for the pink sand. I think we have Popeye The Very Macho Sailor Man in a pink shirt.

Once, we were looking for sandals together and I thought I’d let him be a “big boy” and choose his own sandals and he picked the extremely pink ones. Rather than say “No, that’s for girls” I just steered him towards sandals that were not available in pink. He eventually chose the dark purple ones.

While I have no problem with him liking pink, I don’t think I would necessarily buy him pink shoes or pink t-shirts to wear, neither would I get him a huge, pink Barbie school bag. (We did get him a pair of pink pyjamas once – he was insistent – and we felt it was ok because he just wears it to sleep. Oh, and also while playing in the garden in the morning which is ok too because we never care what the neighbours think!) Anyway, after a few months in kindergarten he started saying things like, “No, pink is for girls-laa.” Society will eventually just beat that preference out of him.

Still, he was thrilled when he received his two-tone shocking pink Leapster for his birthday this year. And this past Hari Raya, when Nenek bought him a rose pink baju Melayu, he seemed to actually like it and not fuss when we wanted him to try it on!

Today, his preference for pink came in handy. He’s been having a cough lately but the cough medicine that his doctor prescribed probably tastes quite nasty because he just flat out refuses to take it. When we do manage to force it in, he just spits it back out. So we went to the pharmacy to look for something else. We found a cough syrup which was a brand that we ourselves have had before and it didn’t taste too bad. When we got home, he saw it and he was thrilled that it was a pink colour liquid! For the first time, after his dinner he actually asked for it. And he took it – and swallowed it – very willingly.

Thank goodness for pink cough syrup!