Hayley DeRoche

Here they will rock with you in the beige glider, cooing to your neutral lullabies.

Here they will giggle, neutrally, and burp onto beige burk cloths.

Here they will refuse to drift off to dreamland in their beige crib, choosing instead to scream like an inconsolable parade of fire trucks blaring their sirens long into the night.

Ah, what bliss this room shall see!

I think that you should lean into whatever brings you joy.

So if beige truly is bringing you joy, then...

your child will probably find joy in it too because you're raising them in a way that makes you happy.

But likewise, if there comes a point where your child is like, I want that horrible purple tutu or like my son fell in love with a clown doll at spirit Halloween.

No amount of giving him like cute, snuggly bunnies would solve it.

He wanted that.

And so sometimes you also just have to give in to whatever whimsical, weird things.

thing happens in your parenting journey.

You know, we have a lot of power.

And, you know, I joke that we have become internet and internet is us, but it does mean that we are internet.

So we can push back against that.

But I don't think that we have to just surrender to the algorithm.

In the end, we are the people who control our lives and our aesthetics and everything.

All of the best things that I've found have come from like the local art market in my house rather than buying prints online, although that can be nice.

And so just being willing to explore and see what's out there and fall in love with stuff that you find that maybe your algorithm hasn't fed you.

Oh, my God.