Traumatizing Infants Through Color

My wife and I are expecting our first child very soon, as in sometime in the next 30 days soon. We've been scrambling around trying to make sure we've got everything ready, and doing our best to have the nursery in a decent enough place for his arrival.

One of the nice touches has been the dresser that we're putting in said nursery. This piece of furniture is 65 years old, and was actually my dresser when I was a little guy, too. It has decades of paint caked on it, so my Mom and I have been stripping, sanding, and staining it over the last several days; It's hard to work on a crafts project when you only have an hour to spare each day.

Since our boy's crib is a lovely dark walnut color, we've tried to stain the dresser in a similar , if not exact, color. While working on this, I commented that Max (our soon-to-be boy's name) would have a lot of dark furniture in his room. My Mom spun around to me with such speed that she took me off guard. "For god's sake, make sure he has bright colors in there!" she exclaimed. "You brother had nothing but dark colors and look what happened. You had yellows and bright blues, and you turned out fine."

Worry not. My brother isn't a serial killer or Christian conservative. He did butt heads with my parents a lot, however, and growing up was more often than not a pain in the ass. So heeding this advice, I looked around the nursery the other day, observing the color schemes we have for Max.

Yes, his furniture tends to be dark, but the dark crib has bright blue and orange bedding. His toys and clothes are all out of The Wizard of Oz. Except for that one hat that is black and dark red, but that's because those are the only colors babies can see in the first stage of life outside the womb. At least, that's what my wife tells me. And she's smart (lawyer smart) so I believe her.

The point is this: If my Mother's theory has any validity, and dark colors make you difficult and light colors make you easy, Max has a nice combination of both. Am I setting my son up to be a schizophrenic...?