wow she managed to not smear JC at all in that peice!

Great story Helene spoken like a true Jersey City girl.

Waving the Pink Flag

New York Times
By HELENE STAPINSKI
Published: March 27, 2009

I WAS a tomboy. I grew up climbing trees and playing baseball in a dirt lot in Jersey City. I cried on my First Communion Day when my mother told me I?d have to wear that white dress all day long. My first Halloween costume was an astronaut?s space suit, complete with a blinking red light on my helmet. I wore boys? swim trunks until I was old enough to be teased by the real boys in my neighborhood.

But somehow, some way, I have spawned a girly girl.

My 5-year-old daughter, Paulina, has loved pink and purple since she was a year old, and it?s really not my fault. I dressed her in her big brother?s blue and red hand-me-downs until she was old enough to protest.

Pink was always my least favorite color. Purple ran a close second. But to make my daughter happy, I actually paid someone to paint her room the color of Pepto-Bismol. I wince every time I go in there, though the pain and shock are starting to fade.

When I was a girl, the only way my mother could get me to play with a doll was to give me some rope and let me tie it up and then pretend to rescue it, as if I were a superhero. My daughter brushes the hair of her doll lovingly, sleeps next to it and even talks to it. She refuses to wear pants, even on 17-degree days. She likes jewelry and ruffles and dress-up. And ribbons and bows. And princesses.

My daughter is an alien life form to me.

Don?t get me wrong. I?m not a complete stranger to girly girls; my big sister was one of them. She was a cheerleader and the prettiest girl for miles. She loved ? and still loves ? to shop. And it?s because of her, a backlash, I?m sure, that I became a tomboy, to set myself apart and forge my own identity.

When Paulina was born, I named her after my sister, Paula. And there?s some part of me, the mystical, supernatural-loving part of me, that makes me wonder if naming her after Paula has made her just like Paula. If I hadn?t gone through several hours of labor, I would swear Paulina was Paula?s daughter and not my own. It?s actually a running joke in our family. ?Are you sure she?s yours?? my niece recently asked.

Every few months, I have to take Paulina shopping for dresses. I would much rather have a dental cleaning than go shopping. Clothes are an annoyance to me, a necessary inconvenience at best. But Paulina loves to shop and will walk a mile ? and actually has, with me in tow, of course ? for the perfect pair of boots. If I could send her to the mall by herself, I would. But Social Services would not allow it.

Whenever I have a date with my husband, Paulina helps me pick my outfit. I?m hoping that when she?s older I can pay her to be my stylist. But she always chooses the fanciest cocktail dress in the closet ? something I last wore to a wedding back in 1986 ? and I sadly have to inform her that Daddy and I are just going to have a beer around the corner. But I compromise, and by the time I leave the house, I?m wearing a skirt.

Sometimes a pink skirt.

I found myself buying pink and purple clothing recently, not because I like it any more than I did 30 years ago, but because I know it will make Paulina smile.

When she was 3 years old, Paulina dropped the biggest girly-girl bomb of all on me, one that I should have seen coming but didn?t. She told me that she wanted to take ballet lessons. All I knew about ballet was that it was something I never wanted to know anything about.

I signed her up for classes at a local dance studio and watched, amazed, how Paulina instinctively knew what to do. While waiting for class to end, I started reading the reviews of the New York City Ballet. Within six months, I knew who Wendy Whelan was, I knew the difference between a pli? and an arabesque, and how to get cheap seats at Lincoln Center.

Paulina and I started going to the ballet, educating ourselves at what I thought was the same pace. But she was a quick study and learned, before I did, to tell the difference between the ?Nutcracker? and ?Swan Lake? scores. She swooned at the costumes and sets for ?The Sleeping Beauty.? She didn?t blink during the entire two hours of ?Copp?lia.? But then neither did I.

I surprised myself by actually enjoying the ballet, not only for the lithe, powerful bodies that leap and spin across that awesome stage, but also for the little girls like my own whom I watch as they watch. They are in love with those ballerinas and sit there entranced by the pink tutus and the sparkles and the chiffon and the tiaras and satin toe shoes and all the soft, lovely things I rejected for years and years. When I look at them, I sometimes feel as if I may cry. Because of Paulina, my tough-girl facade has begun to crack.

Last year, I received an e-mail notice that ?Romeo and Juliet? tickets were going on sale. The only seats still available were for the evening performance, much too late for Paulina to make it through the full two hours. I bought the tickets anyway and asked my husband to go with me. He looked at me as if I were wearing a fez and had informed him I had just joined the Shriners.

?What?? he asked, incredulously. ?You mean you want to go to the ballet??

?I think I might actually like it,? I admitted, shaking my head, my inner girly girl falling softly and helpless at both our feet.

That night, Paulina helped me pick my jewelry and outfit. And this time, I went with the fancy dress.