Parents Backed for Refusing to Repaint House Despite Son’s Embarrassment

While beige and gray tend to dominate residential landscapes, one family’s decision to stick with their home’s bright pink exterior has been applauded online.

The family secured the house 15 years ago, when it was purchased as a fixer-upper from someone who had chosen the bold color to irritate his neighbors. The current homeowners have embraced the quirky design, preserving the pink hue even after one of their children began voicing his hatred for it.

In recent weeks, as the family began to plan minor renovations on the property, their 13-year-old son started voicing his embarrassment, urging his parents to repaint the home in a more “normal” color. Despite his protests, the parents decided to retain the color, but they have turned to Reddit to find out if the public supports the way they rebuffed their son’s opinion.

“Ultimately, it’s our house and we’ll be living in it longer than him,” one of the parents shared under the username u/Wild-Argument-308. “When we die, he’s free to paint it what he wants.”

They added: “My mother-in-law feels we’re being unfair and that we should take into account how it’s embarrassing for a teen boy to live in a ‘Barbie house.’ We asked my son if he’s being teased and he said no. But he hates it. Our daughters like it.”

The domestic dispute caught the virtual attention of thousands on Reddit, where the post has received over 9,000 upvotes and 1,700 comments since it was shared nine days ago.

Of the many supporters of the pink, some shared their own stories of living in uniquely colored homes, reinforcing the value of individuality and the emotional connection associated with such design choices.

“I live in a pink house, the color chosen by my husband’s grandfather. It’s the only pink house in our area and anytime someone asks where we live, we say the pink house on our street and they all know the house,” one user wrote.

Another user added: “Where I live there is a chunk of really old houses that are all marked as historic buildings now and all of them are different, non traditional colors. I absolutely love those houses. Houses with character are always superior to the cookie cutter beige houses everyone else has.”

Dr. Yann Poncin, assistant professor of child psychology at the Yale Child Study Center, weighed in on the family’s decision, telling Newsweek: “The parents’ approach is perfectly fine. They have a good reason for keeping it pink, and they explained it to their son.”

Poncin emphasized the importance of validating the son’s feelings while maintaining parental authority, a balance that he described as “nice parenting.”

“I think it’s nice parenting to give a reason, whether to the son or the mother-in-law, something like ‘his pink has meaning for the previous owner that we honor’ could work,” he said.

The assistant professor suggested that the parents try and validate the son’s feelings, even if they don’t necessarily agree with them.

He suggested they could say something like: “I can imagine that it might be embarrassing since pink is an unusual color and often associated with Barbie, but mom and I like it and it means something to us.”

“And, as they say, he can then paint it as you want when he inherits it! If that’s the worst thing you ever do in raising him, he can count himself lucky,” Poncin continued.

Newsweek reached out to u/Wild-Argument-308 for more information via Reddit.

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