We have been asked again and again why we chose ‘Purple Parenting” as the name for our company. So we thought we would start our blog with an explanation.  We had so many ideas, so many truly awful ideas! Our main goal was a name that made it clear that we offered parenting support – so the parenting part was easy. We then got completely hung up on another word to go alongside it.

We quickly ruled out those that have already been used (you would be surprised how many), so we ran a mile from ‘positive’, ‘pure’ and ‘productive’, to name but a few! We also drew a blank with describing parenting – parenting matters, parenting works, valuable parenting are already out there and did not seem right for us.

Loving a bit of alliteration, we had many nights and many laughs discussing ‘p’ words;  ‘painless parenting’, ‘potential parenting’, ‘patronising parenting’ (really?), ‘poxy parenting’ (can you sense the desperation?) We are good at what we do but even we drew the line at ‘peaceful’ or ‘perfect’ parenting!  We wanted something different and memorable but something that had a strong image.

Finally a text was sent “How about Purple Parenting?” and got a tentative “I think I like it”!

Purple to us represents a step away from some of the restrictions of public sector working. We totally get Jenny Joseph’s poem, ‘Warning – When I am an old woman I shall wear purple’ and love the sentiment of freedom behind it.

Purple as a colour apparently has ‘the calming influence of blue, and the energy of red” and represents the future and moving forward – we know, we looked it up! Once again, this resonated with what we wanted to provide. We ran it past friends and family and someone answered “Like a purple patch”, which means a run of success and good fortune. Who could argue with that? Finally, and probably most important of all, purple is the colour of Cadbury’s chocolate. It just seemed to fit! 

We have now gone a bit purple crazy – phone covers, pens, books – if you can get it in purple we have it! One of us even got given some lucky purple pants. (We are not telling you who!)