The Onesie Our Baby Won't Wear...Ever
Erin Burt
My husband and I were walking through Home Depot when a woman stopped us to say what a beautiful baby we have. Who doesn’t love to hear that, right?
And then she said, “You know prom night is just around the corner, so better keep this one locked up!”
First off… um, what? And Second…. gross, she is a year old, but thanks.
We were really taken aback by this and it isn’t the first time somebody has eluded to the fact that some day our precious little baby is going to be a sexually active woman someday.
It reminded us of a gift we were given at our baby shower of a onesie that said “I’m Never Allowed to Date…Ever.” My husband and I both smiled and said thank you when we opened it, but later when putting the gifts away both agreed that she was never going to wear that one. We hated it. We hated that it already sexualized her when she wasn’t even born yet. We didn’t find it cute or funny, we found it a message that meant her body didn’t belong to her.
Then I started to notice more and more other slogan onesies out there that maybe took things a little too far. Like this one that says “All Mommy Wanted Was a Back Rub” or the ones that say “I’m The Reason Mommy Drinks.”
I get it. It’s meant to be a joke that daddy got a little too excited and baby is born or that motherhood is damn stressful at times. But is it really funny? Do we want our infants to be the ones delivering the message that these slogans are insinuating?
Infants aren’t able to express themselves and are at the mercy of their parent’s decisions everyday. In the current times of the #metoo movement and moving past “Boys will be boys,” these types of slogan onesies are becoming out of place. There is no need to sexualize a newborn or to have them wear something making a statement of where they came from, we already know how that works.
Lisa resides in Oklahoma with her husband, daughter and Boston Terrier and doesn’t like onesies that make her daughter sound more like a teenager than a baby.