As you may have heard, this week is National Princess Week. (Yes, really. Don’t question me, I listen to Radio Disney all day.) Since I know many of you have been wondering why I have a beef with the lovely ladies, I figure I should clear things up.
It’s not the princesses I don’t like. In fact, there are qualities I admire in each of them. (Well, the ones I know. I’m afraid I’m behind on meeting the most recent official additions.) One of them works her butt off and loves animals. (Enough to befriend rodents, so you can only imagine how bad those step sisters must really be.) Another one escapes death multiple times and proves people of all personality types are worthy of love—even the grumpy ones. A particularly driven girl makes huge sacrifices (and grows legs) in order to dive into (pun intended) an entirely different culture. I mean, you get the point. These girls earned their party dresses and tiaras.
So why is it so many people seem to skip to the end of the story? To the part where the princess has been saved by a prince and lives a glamorous life of beauty and pampering?
Of course there’s no harm in putting on dresses and dancing around. (Heck, even I do that.) And there’s something truly magical about a fairy tale and creating imaginary scenarios where people live happily ever after. But from what I’ve seen, we’re not doing our little girls any favors by forgetting to teach them there’s a story of struggle that leads to the happy ending—and makes it that much sweeter.
For instance, recently when I was co-oping at Little’s school, there was a little girl on the playground who likes to be a different princess each day. She refuses to answer to her own name, only Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle… Well, another little girl tried to come into her kingdom and she bashed her on the head with a toy. When the teacher went to discipline her, she replied, “I’m a princess! I don’t have to follow the rules!”
Of course I know tons of extremely sweet little girls who love princesses, dress up and pretend play. They know where the line is between imagination and entitlement. But now that I have a little girl of my own—who already drags around her baby doll and shows princess-in-training personality traits—I worry. (Surprise, surprise.)
Will Pink know that happiness shouldn’t be measured in sparkles and up-dos? Will she be able to gracefully balance imaginary grandeur with real-life humility? Will she know beauty is more than jewel deep? Will she be willing to work hard to build the life she dreams of?
If I have anything to say about it, the answer to all of these questions will be yes. I just hope my spin on princess mania will be as convincing as the Cinderella’s on the playground in a couple years.
How do you encourage imaginary play, but show your little princess who’s really queen/king?
Seems like the little princesses parents, the King and Queen are going to be having lots of conferences with the teacher.
Ha, you’re probably right. Someday, her prince-ipal will come! But so far, she’s reigning the preschool.
As I have grown and my daughter has grown, I prefer to favor Goddesses. They are strong, stand on their own and do not require anyone to make them whole. Give it a whirl. I’ve never heard anyone refer to a Goddess with any kind of negative connotation. 🙂
I like it!
As a mom of a little girl who loves princesses I am ashamed I have not pointed out that fact that they work hard to get to the happy ending (I will now)…I guess I focus more on the kindness, grace and what makes all the animals and people love them so. Princesses do not bark orders or hit others-that is the evil queen in the story and no one likes them (they all want to get rid of or kill them-I have not said that to my daughter:> but it is true). What makes a princess is making kind, thoughtful decisions and treating everyone the way you would want to be treated. Also Pink has you to look up to-you work so hard in many ways to provide a wonderful home and life for your children-and you possess the qualities of all those princesses-grace, beauty and kindness.
As a parent you monitor how they play and act towards others and need to step in if the behavior is not appropriate-sadly a lot of parents do not do that and that is why we get the mean princess on the playground. I have a feeling you won’t have to worry about Pink:>
Oh my goodness, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve taught your princess many valuable lessons about what makes princesses special and it shows! I love your outlook on it and I’ll include those lessons when the time comes too. I have a feeling it’s not too far off!
And I certainly agree girls and boys learn about behavior from parents, but some kids have a tendency to get caught up in the imaginary (like my little superhero/bad guy who turns everything into a gun no matter how many times I explain that’s not ok).
We’ll see what I have to say about the topic in a few years. No doubt Pink’s experiences will shape my view and it will evolve over time. I just hope my little girl turns out to be a good princess like yours!
It’s all fun and games until someone’s parent doesn’t get involved during a teachable moment!!! There’s something to be said about medium-levels of parent hovering…. I’m all about giving space for kids to explore and learn their own lessons, but kiddos are still SO far from making the right choices, especially when it comes to getting a little rough and tumble… and manners, of course.
Superheroes or princesses – with great power comes great responsibility….
I love it, Jodie. So true.
Sounds like maybe you’re more a Bald Barbie kinda gal!
Oh gosh, Barbie hasn’t even entered my thoughts yet!
I love this post – thanks, amy! i am constantly biting my tongue when my daughter wants high-heeled dress up shoes and princess wands – or worse, a barbie. i feel like the princess and barbie scrooge sometimes because i so badly want my girl to know that she can and do anything. i went in search of a recent princess who still had a good balance of hard work and was pleased to find “the princess and the frog”. the story of working hard for your dreams balances the pretty dresses and wands. and the music is fun for adults too. so, we talk about tiana a lot in our house (oh and she adds to our diversity discussions too). i am looking forward to seeing the movie “miss representation” in a few weeks to learn more about how we can balance it all out.
Leslie, no doubt your little girl is learning great lessons from you no matter what her toys are.
I’ll have to look into MR…hadn’t heard of it until now. Thanks for the heads up!
The princess subject is an interesting one. I have two girls and they both went through a little bit of a princess phase. I just tried to not incourage it at all. My girls had their share of halloweens as princesses and they got plenty of princess gifts for Christmas and birthdays. But we didn’t play into it and eventually they lost interest and it went away.
One of my proud mama moments was when we were at DisneyWorld, and all the staff people would call girls “princess”. One of the employees asked my little one who her favorite princess was. My daughter said, “I don’t really like princesses.”
And now you can live happily ever after. 😉
Having grown up with two brothers, my dad always called me Princess and I liked it. I still had to do dishes and clean up and help with my little brothers. To me being princess meant that I could enjoy being a girl with all my feminine traits. I didn’t really think of it in terms of Disney characters or costumes–in fact, I never had one. I like being a girl and have always appreciated a degree of girly things (including sparkle, as I do even now). So I just prefer to see being a princess as as being a girl who can celebrate who she is in a positive light. Quick questiion–was Pollyanna a princess !??
I guess the princess doesn’t fall far from the queen. This is a great way to describe my outlook of the positive spin on “princess”.