We get the New York Times delivered on Sundays. The rest of the week—and even, at this point, for many Sunday stories—I read my NYT online. The physical paper started arriving as a most wonderful baby welcome gift from Lucien’s godmother nearly 14 years ago. We have kept it going ever since. Along with the relatively brief read of our local paper, it’s enough paper—and such a civilized ritual, the Sunday Times. The baby in question is turning 14 later this spring. He reads more and more of that paper—always the Food section online as his Wednesday ritual, and on Sundays, he begins with Travel and goes from there—as well as the local paper every morning. He’s also onto the New Yorker these days.
I start with Styles. Someone has to have her priorities straight around here. I read the usual suspects, like Modern Love. Often, I go through the weddings. This particular Sunday’s Styles read on Monday afternoon I was entranced by a story about figure skaters, another on Universal Life Ministers growing in the ranks (that would be… me!) and I was settling into Modern Love when Saskia hijacked the paper to decide which girls—gur-rius—were pretty.
I can’t find the ad to lift its image so you get the style, just add a huge pink backdrop for effect in your minds. This Louis Vuitton spring collection for women line drew raves from the four year-old. Earlier in the day—she was home sick—she wished to be a princess just like on a primitive picture she found on a book about DIY kid craft projects. I’m getting it—filmy, frothy, pink and pretty, that’s the look, whether nailed by Louis Vuitton or a catalogue for kids.
Had I even really noticed the ads in Styles this much before? I had not. One thing about being a Free-to-be-You-and-Me feminist, as my friend Lauren sagely reminded me is supporting our kids in whatever their passions. Having opened my heart to that truth, I enjoyed watching the little gal thumb through the section declaring most women in pink or even dressed colorfully “pretty” and many in black “not pretty,” although, it turned out, she did think some black-clad women were “pretty.” I am pretty certain that to my four year-old Black is the New Pink is not getting any traction, at least just yet.
