{You callin' me a princess?}I have a confession to make: I don't like pink. Or princesses. Gasp! And Malayna doesn't really know who Cinderella or Snow White are. Double gasp! In fact, I've been consciously limiting her exposure to princesses {do you know how hard that is?}. If she asks about them, I'll answer her questions. I just don't want to introduce them - it's bound to happen once she's in school.
Maybe I wouldn't mind them so much if they weren't so prevalent. Try going into a store without seeing some kind of princess reference. It seems like the choices for little girls are narrowing instead of expanding. I dread going to big name toy stores - the aisles {that they've assigned as "girl" aisles} are dripping in pink. I don't want to go near the stores with clothing covered in flowers, hearts and butterflies. How about bedding? When Malayna needed new pillowcases last year, we had to cross over into the "boys" section just to get one with the alphabet on it.
I don't mind her pretending to be a princess - she's being creative! But I don't want that to be the only thing she pretends to be. She loves to play dress up with lots of different "costumes" - cowboy, firefighter, doctor, baby, mommy, dog. Even princess. {Except her princess doesn't wear pink - she wears blue.}
Princesses don't really do anything. They're basically here to look pretty and be nice. Both of which are perfectly fine - just not all the time. Princesses are perfect. Real girls are not.
There's so much pressure on girls today to be perfect, pretty and thin. Ever seen a princess who wasn't all of the above?
PS: Apparently Malayna has ESP. As I was writing this, she was looking at a baby doll magazine. She brought it over to me, opened to a Disney ad with Cinderella, and said "mommy, look at this beautiful princess."
*The photo above is by Kristen Kalp.
5 comments:
Same here. I think I encouraged playing with trucks and blocks and lincoln logs instead of Barbies and princesses. All those things seemed more purposeful. Instead of dance, we signed Chloe up for sports class. Now she's 6 and an awesome bike rider, roller skater, scooter rider and ball-hitter. She did pick up the princess influences in school, but she could take them or leave them. I think at her age we're still her biggest influences.
We have blocks, trucks, instruments etc. but her favorite thing is still dolls.
Good idea about sports class! I'm glad to hear that the princess influence from school hasn't really effected her.
Ha ha ha!! Did you intentionally wait until I left for vacation to write the "PINK" post!! I need to speak up for the color pink. Oh pink...how I love you. The color or my little MagPie's cheeks (you know they told me she was as pink as a rose petal when she was born...you gotta love THAT color!), that great pinky orange that shows up in my new flower bed which I'm oh so proud of, sunsets, sweet lips, chocolate wrapped in shiny pink wrappers!! YUM!! Come to think of it...I could use some chocolate right about now :-)
Princesses...I can take them or leave them. But PINK!! Oh I LOVE pink!!
All those pink things you speak of are wonderful! You just won't catch me wearing pink, decorating my house with pink or using pink in my work ;)
When are you coming home?
I'll be home today :-( Everything's been great...except for bedtime. Maggie at her spirited best!!
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