My stupid hang up about car seat color

I just realized why I can never bring myself to buy a pink seat. Because my favorite color is pink. And if someone I lived with bought me a car and I knew they picked the color because it was their favorite color and it would be sitting in their driveway to look at, it would still bug me that they had bought it based on their favorite color, but it was my car to sit in and drive for years. What a stupid thought process I have!

I'm not sure I follow. LOL. Are you saying you won't buy a pink seat because the child sitting in it doesn't like pink?

I tend to gently pursuade my children that they like the color choice that I like.

(I'm sort of joking... I'm actually giving the girls free rein to pick their color boosters and I attempted to give them a choice on their frontiers, but I didn't like how the pink offerings weren't soft like cow so I kind of steered cow - it wasn't hard, though. The baby pretty much likes whatever I like.)

LISmama810 said:

I'm not sure I follow. LOL. Are you saying you won't buy a pink seat because the child sitting in it doesn't like pink?

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No, I think she doesn't want to push her color choices on a kid. Kinda like I LOVE purple, but if I had a little girl that wanted a pink seat, I'd let her get pink (shudder, I strongly dislike pink) if the seat we needed came in pink.

If the child asked for pink, I'd be for it. Meanwhile, I've always lived purple on DD2 and she's decided EVERYTHING must be pink all the time. She has a pink sky FR85 waiting for her to turn 4 or outgrow her seat rf so she should be happy.

Does this obsession extend to clothing colors?

Personally, I view the carseat as an extension of the car, not a possession of the child so I'd have no problem picking a color because I like it. Kinda like furniture. When DD1 was little I bought a toddler size recliner. I picked it to match the adult furniture, even though it the chair itself was for her. It never even occurred to me that she might look at it and dwell on me picking a color I liked.

My money, my van, my colour seats. Pretty sure my kids don't know seats come in any colour except Black/Shadow/Onyx

YinzerMama said:

... so I kind of steered cow ...

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No pun intended? He he he..

I've never even considered letting my kids pick their seats do people really do that lol? I just care about all my seats matching one another. At the moment my seats are all Onyx and black, which also matches my car interior perfectly.

katymyers said:

I've never even considered letting my kids pick their seats do people really do that lol? I just care about all my seats matching one another. At the moment my seats are all Onyx and black, which also matches my car interior perfectly.

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Because having a say in any transition makes it easier for my 4 yr old to handle them, or advance warning at least. Letting him pick what color FR85 he was gonna get did both . Although he would have preferred the red one to the Maui he got

Keeyamah said:

Because having a say in any transition makes it easier for my 4 yr old to handle them, or advance warning at least. Letting him pick what color FR85 he was gonna get did both . Although he would have preferred the red one to the Maui he got

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I get that lol. I guess I got lucky so far with my boys, they don't even care about what they wear yet. Ella though, she's my little magpie, I can see her caring. She loves anything shiny, bright, colorful, or pretty and she will already (at two) point at pictures on my phone or in ads and catalogues of clothes, shoes and oddly enough car seats and strollers and will tell me she wants them. She got really excited over a Kiwi Pioneer lol.

katymyers said:

I get that lol. I guess I got lucky so far with my boys, they don't even care about what they wear yet. Ella though, she's my little magpie, I can see her caring. She loves anything shiny, bright, colorful, or pretty and she will already (at two) point at pictures on my phone or in ads and catalogues of clothes, shoes and oddly enough car seats and strollers and will tell me she wants them. She got really excited over a Kiwi Pioneer lol.

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Quinn both cares and doesn't, lol. He has his favorites out of the shirts he owns and a marked preference for short sleeves and I only buy jeans unless I'm buying for pictures or something, lol. I'm gonna be screwed if I end up with a girly girl, I'm a jeans and tee shirt tom boy

LISmama810 said:

I'm not sure I follow. LOL. Are you saying you won't buy a pink seat because the child sitting in it doesn't like pink?

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Yes. Sort of. But I'm saying it my typical hard to understand way. Welcome to the mess inside my head!

YinzerMama said:

I tend to gently pursuade my children that they like the color choice that I like.

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I actually do this too! But I can't go as far as "persuading" pink because it is so much my favorite color that I would feel it was totally obvious I was trying to get my way.

Keeyamah said:

No, I think she doesn't want to push her color choices on a kid. Kinda like I LOVE purple, but if I had a little girl that wanted a pink seat, I'd let her get pink (shudder, I strongly dislike pink) if the seat we needed came in pink.

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Yes, pretty much this. Although I do draw the line at seat colors I strongly dislike. Which interestingly is blacks/grays/neutrals! My life needs color!

MommyShannon said:

If the child asked for pink, I'd be for it. Meanwhile, I've always lived purple on DD2 and she's decided EVERYTHING must be pink all the time. She has a pink sky FR85 waiting for her to turn 4 or outgrow her seat rf so she should be happy.

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I would love to have a kid that loves pink... one dd tried to love pink for awhile for me but I could tell she was faking. Also we are picky about our pinks here. Certain pinks work for us, others just don't.

safeinthecar said:

Does this obsession extend to clothing colors?

Personally, I view the carseat as an extension of the car, not a possession of the child so I'd have no problem picking a color because I like it. Kinda like furniture. When DD1 was little I bought a toddler size recliner. I picked it to match the adult furniture, even though it the chair itself was for her. It never even occurred to me that she might look at it and dwell on me picking a color I liked.

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Only car seats as far as I can tell. When it comes to clothes we get by largely on hand-me-downs and gifts and of course have no say in those. The few times I have bought clothes I have bought the cheapest option regardless of color. If there was a color choice I bought what would most please the largest majority of children since everything becomes a hand-me-down.

I have tried viewing the car seats as extensions of the car but I can't seem to stop seeing them as the domain of the child since they have to sit in them. This time I italicized have lol because I think a part of me might feel a bit... hmm... bad? picky? controlling? overbearing? I'm not going to come up with the right word so please excuse me. I think this is for two reasons: I am crazy for car seat safety so my kids ride restrained much longer than the majority of their peers, and as such 1.) I need my kids to be on board about their own safety and I can only imagine a seat they like helping because 2.) I quit riding a bike in middle school because that is when my parents made helmet use non-negotiable and the helmet they required was ugly and uncomfortable. See my stupid thought processes at work again?

If I liked neutral seats I'd probably give the kids no say- I'd be Henry Ford about it. But I love colorful seats! However I know colors are as individual as people. Just as I would hate riding in a black seat (okay, I do ride in a black seat, but I would love car manufacturers to offer more choices!!) I don't want to be the reason someone is unhappy in their seat. So when I was buying Britax Marathons 9 years ago I sadly passed up Foofy because what if my kid hated pink and I was sentencing them to 6 years in a pink seat? Same reason the next Britax was Onyx and not Meghan. Thankfully we all liked Cowmoo for the Frontier and Flora for the Radian (My dc wanted Flora or the pink one. I will admit I steered him towards Flora because the pink one was too pink for me.) And I was half happy and sad when the pink CCO was retired because if I could no longer get it I could not longer lust for it. I'm drooling over the pink houndstooth Radian that is supposed to be coming out, but I won't be getting it. And the reason this came up for me is because I'm not going to let myself enter to win the Britax Advocate G4 because my favorite two color choices are pink but I refuse to let myself get pink! GAH!!

For my kid whom has patiently let me type this out (and lives with me which by now I am sure you realize requires patience): :yeahthatmad::jive::yeahthatsad::spit::yeahthatlove:

I have hang-ups about car seat colors too, but they're different.

For us, it's all about finding gender-neutral colors, since this is our first baby and we want to get the most use out of whatever seat we have. I really wish the Britax seats all came in the same colors. We need a Pavilion because we have caregivers who need some extra help when it comes to knowing what a snug harness should be like, but I love the Laguna color that only comes on Boulevards and the Kiwi color that only comes on Marathons.

I think the Cub Pink for the Pavilion is adorable, but my husband won't get on board with a non-gender-neutral color. Why doesn't the Pavilion come in any "cool" colors that are also gender-neutral?

Nedra said:

I have hang-ups about car seat colors too, but they're different.

For us, it's all about finding gender-neutral colors, since this is our first baby and we want to get the most use out of whatever seat we have. I really wish the Britax seats all came in the same colors. We need a Pavilion because we have caregivers who need some extra help when it comes to knowing what a snug harness should be like, but I love the Laguna color that only comes on Boulevards and the Kiwi color that only comes on Marathons.

I think the Cub Pink for the Pavilion is adorable, but my husband won't get on board with a non-gender-neutral color. Why doesn't the Pavilion come in any "cool" colors that are also gender-neutral?

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My dh thinks of pink as a gender color so he's certainly never encouraged me to get a pink seat But the kids and I don't think that way. Both of my sons like pink more than my oldest dd ever has. Which is a bummer because as the oldest her say in seats most often gets passed down to the others and they would all love her to choose pink but she can't bring herself to do it. And I'm too cheap to buy multiple covers.

Even though I don't agree colors have genders I DO agree that we need more colorful seats that appeal to people that want to avoid the pink/blue paradigm.

I've picked the colors for my DD - all pink! But she was too little to pick when I bought them. For her booster, I'll probably let her pink, but I'm sure she'll say pink because that's her favorite color too.

teekadog said:

My dh thinks of pink as a gender color so he's certainly never encouraged me to get a pink seat But the kids and I don't think that way. Both of my sons like pink more than my oldest dd ever has. Which is a bummer because as the oldest her say in seats most often gets passed down to the others and they would all love her to choose pink but she can't bring herself to do it. And I'm too cheap to buy multiple covers.

Even though I don't agree colors have genders I DO agree that we need more colorful seats that appeal to people that want to avoid the pink/blue paradigm.

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I don't think colors have genders either. We have a pink/purple infant seat that we will be passing down to our next baby, regardless of gender because the baby won't care and we don't care either (plus it is GORGEOUS). But I worry that little boys will get teased in a pink seat and, from what I hear, kids whose parents are responsible about car seats (ERF, etc) already get teased.

It's really reassuring to know that your boys like pink and would choose it for a seat. Gives me hope that society is changing!

Nedra said:

I don't think colors have genders either. We have a pink/purple infant seat that we will be passing down to our next baby, regardless of gender because the baby won't care and we don't care either (plus it is GORGEOUS). But I worry that little boys will get teased in a pink seat and, from what I hear, kids whose parents are responsible about car seats (ERF, etc) already get teased.

It's really reassuring to know that your boys like pink and would choose it for a seat. Gives me hope that society is changing!

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See, you are way more evolved than me because I couldn't even bring myself to pick the color of any of my newborn's seats! With the first I picked the only unplain one, with the second I went with denim, and from then on I have let the kids pick. And you're right about the teasing. My 5yo does get teased for riding in a Flora Radian. Thankfully his mom is more embarrassing than his car seat so he's pretty used to ignoring that stuff.

I always want the pretty seats (purple radian, confetti parkway, Livia fr85, purple/silver keyfit). I always have to steer myself gender neutral because my seats don't have owners, the kids that would sit in them now are mostly girls but who knows who's kids ill be hanging out with next year. I think I need the pulse nextfit from bru or one of the new diono convertibles next...for the approximately 0 children I transport regularly (although ill be watching my cousins girls more since their baby brother got here).