LatteMama sees no colour

Now that I’ve been spending some time in Sweden, I’m a better judge of what true Swedish clothes are. Genderless is the term that is often used to describe Swedish fashion. White, brown, green, yellow, the so-called neutral colures are meant to empower children. Let them know that it’s ok to wear red if you’re a boy, and it’s adored when a girl wears blue. Because I am from Sweden I’ve never cared about colour when it came to dressing my son, majority of his clothes are red, some shirts are pink and it’s not until recent gender confusion (people referring him to she and her) that I’v decided to put a little bit of blue in his closet. I’ve recently noticed that the clothes at LatteMama differ greatly from brand to brand when it comes to colour, and associating them with gender. No Added Sugar and Bonnie Baby our popular British brands, tend to put girls in a certain colour and boys in a different one. It’s not always pink for girls, but it’s always opposing colours for the two. Are No Added Sugar boys like LatteBaby always mistaken for girls and need the blue to make a statement to the works?

Last week I couldn’t find any pyjamas for LatteBaby. I saw my nieces old dress and at the time I put it on him I thought I was desperate to keep him warm and I would never put him in a dress. Truth be told he wore that dress for three days. I didn’t care. I didn’t see it as confusing, nor did I find it embarrassing. It’s just a dress, on a boy who isn’t 2 yet, and who doesn’t understand the difference between wearing a dress and going without trousers. My brothers didn’t see it the way I did. One insisted I’d take it off him immediately. But why does it matter? He didn’t go out in it, nobody except for the family saw a boy in a dress and I wasn’t making a statement by letting him wear it. It truly didn’t make me think twice about the situation, except for trying to understand why it was such a problem.

There is a couple in Sweden that caused great frenzy as they’ve hidden their childs gender from everyone including their child. They want it to now “matter”. Wouldn’t it be better to tell the child it’s gender and then add that it doesn’t matter instead of depriving it of one of the greatest categorisations in the world? Doesn’t it matter more if they feel the need to hide it? What do I know? I’m just a mum who puts her son in a dress cause there’s nothing else to wear.

Internet burnt down the village

A word which reaccured during my pregnancy was: support. It was the deadly final strike to the most occuring question thrown at me during my pregnancy and early months of motherhood; Do you have any support?! I initially didn't know how to reply, until I once again had in got a new midwife during my 32nd week of pregnancy, she and smiled as my frustration because of this question had accumulated, and I had decided to ask for a definition. I said: Support is a funny word isn't it? What do you people mean by it? It didn't take long until the lingo of motherhood was assimilated into my vocabulary, and soon after, the words used by single mothers followed, and now I am certified in the speech of blogging single mom. I am still not sure what is meant when people used the word support. It's often said that it takes a village to raise a child. In this modern world of ours, and in a city like London you can consider yourself very lucky if a nan, a granddad, an uncle or an auntie, -fake or real, is in your vicinity. The village is gone, and is now replaced by the community. An online community in most cases. Google went from online search engine to the hypokondriaks wet dream, forums have gone from being discussion boards to the modern day village.
My situation has changed since I moved back, we are now three women and two boys in the house. In only 24 hours, I'd nurse him, my mother feeds him solids, changes his nappy, gives him his baths, changes his clothes, takes him out on walks, my sister gives him cuddles, plays peek-a-boo and my younger brothers are there for the get down-on-your knees playing which an infant needs but I'm too lazy to do. I realsie this sounds more like a I bought one book which was a timeline of your child first year, not because I had to but because I am old school . truth be told, everything I needed to know was one click away, and if I ever needed to speak to anyone, there were 5 different social netwroks I could log into. I've been through, interviews, online articles, published articles, surveys, forums, communities, blogs and more and its not unitl now that I realise why I did. It wasn'tbecause I was curious, or paranoid or intrigued by the stages of nappy rashes; it was because I had no support. I needed someone who didn't look at me and say; I can't believe your mom - But, instead said, all babies do that. I am back in my mothers house, Its not London, its a small town, where nans and granpapas are not a privilege but a requirement to survive motherhood. I still read blogs, and I still write one in hope that someone will find it useful, but my community won't be raising my child for me now, I have my village.