The Rise of Sad Beige Parenting: How Primary Colours, Shiny Surfaces - and Fun - Were Banished
Name: Sad beige parent.
Age: New, but looks older.
Appearance: Runs the gamut from taupe to fawn.
A restrained palette, you say. Like a stubble field on an overcast January afternoon.
What does this have to do with parenthood? It's about applying that understated aesthetic to your kids.
To their clothes, you mean? Yes, and their toys, their bedrooms and their sad, beige little lives.
A beige child's room? Not just beige, but also oat, linen, cream, stone, rope, bone, and ash.
Why would you do that to a child? Some parents claim it's soothing and gender neutral.
And very difficult to remove stains. It seems to be about imposing his austere - and, ironically, expensive - tastes on his offspring while banishing primary colors, shiny surfaces and fun.
C It's a losing battle. The sad beige parents seem rather determined. "Our whole house is not changing because we have children," one mother told the Wall Street Journal.
Yes. Of course there is.
Isn't pretending there are no colors bad for young people? There's not much evidence either way, but it seems less than ideal. "The motivation to have an Instagrammable home and not let the kids explore and make a mess worries me," neuropsychologist Amanda Gummer told the WSJ. "I don't think many kids' favorite color is beige."
Where did this idea come from? As a marketing trend, it has been bubbling for a while. According to online shopping portal Etsy, searches for beige children's clothing jumped 67% year-over-year. We owe it to American librarian Hayley DeRoche, who created TikTok and Instagram accounts making fun of the sad beige phenomenon.
How does she do it? She makes videos of real catalogs of beige clothes and toys and narrates them as if presented by Werner Herzog: "I call this one 'I looked into the abyss to see what the hell has done". Single top, $45."< /p>
And that stuff is expensive, you say? It's very expensive to dress your child like a 19th century hospice orphan.
When does the backlash start? It's the backlash. We're on our way.
Say, "When I'm old I'll wear purple, and to hell with that £130 ecru blouse."
Don't say, "Did anyone see my child? He was right here in this sandbox, wearing beige organic cotton overalls and holding a sustainably sourced wood...oh, there you are, honey."
Name: Sad beige parent.
Age: New, but looks older.
Appearance: Runs the gamut from taupe to fawn.
A restrained palette, you say. Like a stubble field on an overcast January afternoon.
What does this have to do with parenthood? It's about applying that understated aesthetic to your kids.
To their clothes, you mean? Yes, and their toys, their bedrooms and their sad, beige little lives.
A beige child's room? Not just beige, but also oat, linen, cream, stone, rope, bone, and ash.
Why would you do that to a child? Some parents claim it's soothing and gender neutral.
And very difficult to remove stains. It seems to be about imposing his austere - and, ironically, expensive - tastes on his offspring while banishing primary colors, shiny surfaces and fun.
C It's a losing battle. The sad beige parents seem rather determined. "Our whole house is not changing because we have children," one mother told the Wall Street Journal.
Yes. Of course there is.
Isn't pretending there are no colors bad for young people? There's not much evidence either way, but it seems less than ideal. "The motivation to have an Instagrammable home and not let the kids explore and make a mess worries me," neuropsychologist Amanda Gummer told the WSJ. "I don't think many kids' favorite color is beige."
Where did this idea come from? As a marketing trend, it has been bubbling for a while. According to online shopping portal Etsy, searches for beige children's clothing jumped 67% year-over-year. We owe it to American librarian Hayley DeRoche, who created TikTok and Instagram accounts making fun of the sad beige phenomenon.
How does she do it? She makes videos of real catalogs of beige clothes and toys and narrates them as if presented by Werner Herzog: "I call this one 'I looked into the abyss to see what the hell has done". Single top, $45."< /p>
And that stuff is expensive, you say? It's very expensive to dress your child like a 19th century hospice orphan.
When does the backlash start? It's the backlash. We're on our way.
Say, "When I'm old I'll wear purple, and to hell with that £130 ecru blouse."
Don't say, "Did anyone see my child? He was right here in this sandbox, wearing beige organic cotton overalls and holding a sustainably sourced wood...oh, there you are, honey."
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