Why I'm Glad Brody's Room Looked Like The Sky

I went to my hometown for an overnight stay this past weekend and somehow found myself sucked into the black hole that is family photo albums. I came across a photo of the room by brother stayed in as a baby; the photo was taken once the nursery had been finished, before Brody was born. It was designed to look like the sky. The top half of all the walls were painted very dark blue with yellow stars stamped all over. The bottom half of all the walls were painted yellow. So there was sort of a sunrise effect going on. As I looked at the photo I couldn't help thinking, "If I didn't know any better, I don't think I'd be able to tell if this nursery was meant to be a baby boy's or a baby girl's." It got me thinking about the discussion we had in class about how our society sort of breeds young children to become "girls" or "boys". Look, the pink aisle of the toy store has always rubbed me the wrong way, and someone needs to seriously reconsider the value Western society places on fairy tale princesses. But I think what I hate most is when the sex of a baby is determined, and all of a sudden family and friends are buying everything in pink or everything in blue. Like, what if the kid likes orange? It seems like we're setting up our children to be gendered robots who only make decisions about what they like later in life based on the environment forced upon them when they lacked agency. Problem. Gender shouldn't be a dichotomy, nor should the objects that represent gender be a dichotomy. Everyone should be allowed to like everything, even if it is pink. So, I applaud my parents for making the decision to raise my brother in a sky-themed room, after all, the sky is for everyone. I might do something similar if I ever had children of my own. What I won't do is tell anyone the sex of my hypothetical child. They can nose out and keep the gendered onesies to themselves.