The 'sad beige' trend for kids goes against all my wild instincts | Eva Wiseman

I try not to judge other parents, I do my best - their fate is my fate, their weekly struggles to stay sensitive in soft play, their daily struggles and battles nights are my weekly etcs – but sometimes I get…tested.

I'm talking, of course, about the followers of what has recently been dubbed 'sad beige'. These are parents who, following current fashions, dress their children like little peasants in gloomy tones of oats and camels, buy simple toys in "earthly" tones, and decorate their rooms with such taste and restraint. deafening that it's clear kids are less likely to play with Lego here than carve a bowl for mum to fill with her own milk.

It's a aesthetic that has slipped on the back of minimalism, a word that has long given me shivers. For me, the idea of ​​a minimalist home does not suggest its serenity or peace. Instead, it suggests fear. Afraid of both stains and spills, but also afraid of being wrong. To step out of line and reveal the dark, dirty truth of her inner desires, people thinking you haven't tried hard enough.

Her exquisite emptiness is still considered as morally superior to a house full of furniture, let alone clutter. And while this sense of moral superiority is not new, it is increasingly reinforced by more modern ideas about environmentalism. "Things," such as noisy plastic toys or piles of markers, become proof that their owner doesn't care about the devastation of the planet. That's where brands selling 'sad beige' come in, with a range of wooden or recycled plastic toys in understated Farrow & Ball colors like the 'soggy scone', selling online for twice the price. of "red". "

I have yet to research the benefits of buying a recycled plastic toy or an organic cotton babygro, versus just recycling it yourself, either by gratefully accepting low or popping into the charity shop, but I have my suspicions. I have my suspicions! I find the greenwashing to which parents are subjected particularly sinister - the shameless grabbing of companies posing as activists, selling more and more useless bullshit to desperate people on the pretext that buying their product is somehow like planting a tree - and this is no exception. £26, or £23 if you catch a Black Friday deal.Sometimes it comes in its own little hemp bag, which can then be given to the mother bag that lives under your sink and growls softly when hungry.

I'm sorry. I'm doing this. I'm doing this you thing where an idea irritates me, like a mosquito bite, then I scratch and scratch it until it not only bleeds, but spurts out so much blood that my whole environment is threatened and that any poor cow has the misfortune to stand. my neighborhood will most likely be drowned.

I mean - sure, it's OK to dress your kids in beige. Of course it is. Of course, it is normal to aspire to a life of cleanliness and peace. I do this on a regular basis, especially when wading through the pit in my own children's room, where little sharp, useless pieces of plastic are dying noisily. My problem is the idea that these choices are somehow spiritually better than the other choices available, either because of "nature", or because they are more expensive, or because (as many feminists claim enthusiasts) the trend of old-fashioned clothes in different shades of linen is "gender neutral".

Which - again, the itch. Boycott by all means brands that insist on making T-shirts that say things like: "LOVELY SOFT GIRLIE / SHOW ME TO THE KITCHEN PLEASE" in pink sequins, or "DADDY'S BIG BOLD MAN" above a cartoon of a muscular ceo on a truck with a gun. But it's not the clothes that screw up the kids - we all know the poem. This is us, mom and dad, you and me, bringing our own tastes, anxieties and shit to the table and forcing them to eat it by candlelight.

Just as buying a minimalist rug doesn't come with free inner peace, embracing the kids' lifestyle trend it spawned doesn't ensure your child's perfect life. Gathered linen dresses will inevitably be stained by your messy memories, your strained relationships, those lingering dirty fears. Exquisite little coats won't shield your child from the weather of your own childhood, even if it has a darling waist buckle.

And micromanaging the look of your homes and families, by buying this illusion of class or "sad beige" taste, you are sacrificing chaos. You sacrifice the kind of savagery and recklessness that in childhood is fleeting and sometimes beautiful. As I pound through the dying moans of a battery-operated Peppa Pig obscenity, that's what I choose to believe, anyway.

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