The rudeness of redness

Published on by ortensia

Monday,eventually.I never thought to say that in my life but I am glad it is Monday.I am glad it is this Monday..
“Manic Monday” the Bangles used to sing.”Ordinary Monday”I happily sing .

The alarm clock rings and I am just happy is a back to normal Monday.Girls are back to school;I am back to my yoga;the dogs are back to their long morning walk on the beach.All the afternoon activities are back on too.There is only one thing out of ordinary:the travelling husband home all day.That, it is actually a pleasant out of ordinary thing.No more tedious drives back and forth to the hospital.He is home,safe and well….ish!
We made it to the afternoon with no unexpected events.Except the WiFi that start acting as crap as ever and a couple of nasty phone calls with the provider company but,this is material for an other post.

I am driving the girls to tennis lessons.I am rushing through randomly paved country side roads full of bumps and holes.The sun is very shy.It can’t properly make its way through the clouds.With the complicity of the autumn wind the grey sky make me feel the drop of the temperatures quite drastically.It is cold.It is a typical november day,with no rain.While still in the car A suddenly asks: “Is it true that writing in red is rude?”.I had to make her repeat the question twice not sure if I heard correctly.Once I realized I did hear it correctly, I had to ask her to repeat the question again.Only this time I was looking for inspiration because I couldn’t understand what she meant.CG, probably seeing I was totally lost,jumped into the conversation saying that it is rude indeed.Accordingly with the social requirements she was taught from who knows who,in fact,the red pen is used in kids birthday party invitation to ask to do or not to do something and by the teachers to mark mistakes in the homeworks.It can also be polite if used to write compliments like “well done” or “good work”in the homework but,only the teachers use it that way.I won’t hide I was even more confused then.A throw herself back in the debate and says that one of her class mate said it is rude to write in red because it is like shouting.At this stage question marks where populating my brain and going to show up in a long line on my forehead imminently.She keeps talking and says her teacher also said it is rude to write in red.Now,whatever the teacher said and whatever they understood I had to say something.Not only because red is one of my favourite colors but also because I refuse to be an accomplice in this ridiculous conspiracy against colors.Calmly and trying to keep my eyes on the road,I unveiled the ugly true:they were all nonsense.If someone is wondering about the appropriateness of the word”nonsense”,referred to something said by the teachers,(that I swear usually always back up),I specify that I said I was going to tackle the matter calmly not in a politically correct way.There is no such a thing of rude colors,i said.I explained that they are not allowed to write in red in their school copy books only because red is the color of the pen that the teachers use to correct their work.If they were using a green pen,they wouldn’t be allowed to use green !I remember, when i was in school myself, my teacher used to use the red pen only to mark mistakes.The black one to praise the good work.Back then there was actually the association between red and bad but,certainly no rude.My daughters’ teachers use the red pen for everything indistinctively:good or bad comments.No room for rudeness whatsoever in using the red I would say.As much as i love their teachers i don’t agree at all with this diminishing of the red pen.This time they got it all wrong.Just say to the kids they are not allowed to use it because it is the color used to correct the homework but,don’t call it rude.I thought it was a very curious choice of words actually.A very curious argument to bring in a class of 3rd and 5th graders indeed.Curious and misleading It is an approach that kind of making me go back in time.It is spontaneous the association with when,back in the days,lefthanders were forced to use their right hand because the left one was the hand of the devil.I wonder what could have happened if someone was caught to write with their left hand and a red pen:instant guillotine i guess.

I grew up wearing dark blue,dark green and black.A bit of brown was allowed too.Once in my thirties I discovered the colors and their power.The magic they can work on my mind and mood is amazing;or is my mind and mood playing trick on them?This is a million dollar question.Did the discovery of colors change me or did I discover the colours because I changed first?I think I know the answer but it is not important here.What is matters is that I like colors and the infusion of energy they give.I am trying to pass it over to my girls.My mother used to say they were very colorful.She mainly referred to their clothes and I was not sure it was meant as a compliment.I used to replay that they are kids and kids must be colorful.My kids are still colorful and she gave up commenting.Last time I was in Italy in winter time,my attention was captured by the fact that most of the kids around were dressed like mini me of their parents and they were wearing any shade of grey and black because, those were the colors that the fashion dictated for the current season.I then decided that my mother’s comment about the colourfulness of my girls was a compliment.A compliment indeed ,as they are colorful as much outside as inside.When they will be older they will start picking their own colors and will start experimenting with colors: there might be a dark fase(I had it),a hippish fase ,a whatever else fase.It will be their choice.It will be the reflection of that time of their life and it will be ok.For now they are still too young.They are “just kids”.They have to play and enjoy life as kids with their own identity.A kids’ identity.They need brightness,happiness,lightheartedness.They need to taste all the colors of the world so to be able to choose the right ones for them in the future.I am determined on this one:I won’t play along with the “rude red theory”.I knowingly opposed their teachers and as ultimate act of rebellion I did sign their homework journal with a red pen!

“Manic Monday” the Bangles used to sing.”Ordinary Red Rebellious Monday” I sing.

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35 thoughts on “The rudeness of redness”

  2. Red writing usually is instructional in my experience.

    But interestingly enough red is often used as a colour to suggestive a devious nature, the femme fatale of noir fiction and crime stories usually wears red clothes and it is also used as short hand for a woman who is operates in a more sexual seductive manner.

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      3. I guess superstitions are the same across the worlds aren’t they?😉an historic once told me that black cats were back in the days believe d to keep negative energy away according with healers that’s why they are associated to witches.just this morning a black cat cross the road in front of me while I was going to dentist…..I’m still alive😉

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  5. In the lab environment it used to be frowned upon to use red pen in notes because it ‘didn’t photocopy very well’ apparently.
    As you know – I’m all for colour!
    Says the man wearing a white shirt and black pullover today…

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      2. My husbands only wrest dark grey sock and rigorously white underwear so ….that is normal for s guy….don’t worry…..and after nearly 20 years I m not bored yet😂😂😂

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    1. I actually didn’t expect all this interest😳yes they mark homework in red but the same good or bad score and they have the kids to own s red pen and keep it in their pencil case🙄

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  7. Hi. I enjoyed this blog very much. Your busy life of a mother trying to make sense of the world, your family and then trying to understand the nonsense that colors could possibly be rude is all too (realistically) funny!!!! Oh, the life of a mom!!! It is never boring is it?

    As a recently retired teacher I can comment on the color red and why many teachers (at least in the United States) use it to correct mistakes. They use it because the schools provide teachers with red pens. A plain and simple explanation. Red pens are one of the few items teachers do not have to buy with our own money. (Yes, public education in the US is so underfunded that teachers spend a quarter of our salary to buy materials, therefore if the schools provide pens, most teachers gladly use them.)

    I do have to say that I hated seeing those red pen marks on any of my essays. It meant to me that my perfectly wonderful words of brilliance were flawed! So, I dreaded when I saw the color red. Which bothered me because I have always LOVED red. I am a fiery Aries girl, and red has been my favorite color since I was a young child. It was vibrant, exciting, and quite frankly glorious. Just not especially pretty on the white papers I handed in when I was a student in school. Therefore, as a teacher, I decided to use other colors when grading essays. I would buy my own pens or markers and comment. I would use red to draw hearts and happy faces. But other bold colors for the comments. It isn’t the color a teacher uses in grading papers, but WHAT she or he writes when they use that color. So I would switch it up. (I have always been an “out of the box” girl and therefore I was that kind of teacher. I taught 36 years as an elementary gifted teacher- the top two percent intellectually.)

    Color (I know we in the United States spell it differently than you), is supposed to make us notice things. Therefore, red was initially used to differentiate from the ordinary pen or pencil of the student. But any color will work when grading a paper. It isn’t rude, it isn’t mean, it is just red. HOWEVER, what IS rude, is how the teacher writes her/his comments. There always needs to be something positive said. Such as, “I really like your thought process. Perhaps if you had referred to the protagonist as blah blah blah”…. or “Interesting ideas, I like your humor. How about adding….” If teachers took a little extra time to say something positive before a correction or rather than circling a mistake as a negative, than red or any other color wouldn’t be perceived so negatively. It would just be advice from the teacher.
    I found it quite interesting how children see the color red on papers. Not much different from the way I saw it way back in the 1950’s when I was their age. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on an interesting day of your life.

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    1. Well,first of all thank you for finding time to read my blog and commenting.Second of all thank you for your clever comment and your compliments of course.i browsed around your blog too and from what I read I really take it as a compliment that you like my little adventures😊I frankly did t think to raise all this interest about color or colour 😉Interesting the fact teachers are provide with red pen in the states,I am not sure how it works in Europe but back in my day teachers used red pen only to mark errors and it was awful.Now I see them using red for any porpoise but also black so I am not sure .what I am sure is that kids are required to have a red and a black pen in their pencil case.I love red and yes may be is a color who shout but is it that negative ?i suppose it all depends on what it shouts isn’t it?also think that if you say to your kid that using red is like shouting you also must explain why.10 years old kids don’t filter as adults do.This is a way to create inhibitions without any motivation.For that little girls in my daughter class red will always be associated to shouting and to something too bold as we inevitably fix memories since the early days.
      Have a pleasant evening

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    2. I like you! Teachers have the hardest job in the world – they’re blamed for students’ failures, but not given very much credit for their successes. I applaud you!

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  8. Colors are incredible. They can subtly influence us in ways we’re not aware of. I don’t think any of them are rude, though. lol… You always write the most interesting accounts of your day – and I suppose you have to have interesting days to write about! That helps. 🙂

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    1. You are very rights they influence us in a way we don’t even realise.its amazing.thank you for compliment by the way☺️.these are my days……ordinary but so Extraordinary If looked from the right angle😉I am sure yours are the same😍

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  9. greetings from Cyprus, just a hop across the water from italy and a hop and a half from ireland. 🙂 i’ve now been to both places and loved them both. (are you in northern or southern ireland?)
    discovering and uncovering one’s identity, a hundred little cues per day and the freedom to talk about it all: bravo and best wishes along the way!
    warm regards

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    1. Thank you,and for stopping by And commenting.I used to work with a guy from Cyprus many years ago,it must be beautiful there.
      I am in Republic of Ireland but in the last few years moved on the north side not even a hour from the border with the north.
      Warm regard from the green Ireland with a touch of Italian to you😊

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  10. Last year I signed some official papers using red paper (I’m a teacher and that’s the only pen I have). Darling lady returned the paper to me saying it needs to be black or blue. I said- my name looks the same in all colours. When it comes to kids, I consider it a crime to see them wearing black. The more colourful the better. My nieces are now in kitchen shimmers phase and I encourage it by buying them clothes in all unicorn colours😁My sister doesn’t necessarily agree but we win. Every time😊

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