Fitting in (or not)
In December, my nine year old daughter told me that she no longer likes the colour pink. The word 'hate' was even used. "So what colours do you like then?" I asked, trying to calculate how much money I'd need to spend to replace the majority of her clothes and bedding. "I don't mind," she said. "Just not pink or purple." When it came to buying her a new school coat, I was faced with a dilemma. Without spending a fortune on a coat that would be dragged around and probably stood on numerous times each day, I was left with a smaller selection of shops to choose a waterproof, hooded, warm winter coat from. The only stipulation I had from my daughter was "not pink" but that is just what I found in the shops for her age group. Pink coats, pink and black, pink and grey, pink love hearts, pink roses, anything pink you could ever imagine and more. In the last shop I visited, I finally found a plain black coat which she thankfully gav...