Baby Cross
In the pre-pink/blue era, white was the usual choice, and it made economic sense to use pre-worn baby and toddler outfits for new family members, whatever their sex. Then came an anonymous marketeer's Bright Idea, with no regard to the stereotyping problems that would inevitably follow.
It's unlikely a baby boy or girl reacts differently to blue or pink. It's equally unlikely that babies know anything about crosses, baptism or Christening ceremonies. But the clever marketeers do know!
A small cross might be placed on a child's cot or bedroom wall after he or she has been Christened. The cross takes on various names including: Baby Cross, Christening Cross, Cradle Cross and Infant Cross. The cross may include an image of a cute baby, often in a praying position, with or without angel wings. Alternatively, it may be a chunky toy-like cross in pink or blue, depending of the baby's sex.
Babies know nothing about crosses and ceremonies. So why do we bother?
Proponents of infant baptism (perhaps 80% of all Christians) believe that it doesn't really matter whether or not the child understands what is happening. They believe the ceremony replaces the circumcision referred to in the Old Testament as an appropriate initiation into the Christian community. Since we all inherit 'original sin', parents have a duty to their children to baptize them as soon as practicable to receive God's grace.
Opponents (including Baptists and Pentecostals) generally don't baptize infants because they believe that a person must desire baptism for it to have any effect.
Whatever the denomination, when the person grows and makes the personal choice whether to sin afresh, then it's that person's responsibility to ask for God's forgiveness.
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
