I remember using my nightgowns to make wonderful dreamy ballgowns and snagging my moms heels from her closet, it didn’t mean I was destined to grow up strutting around half naked looking for Prince Charming.

As for the clothing choices for the princesses, I personally applaud Disney for getting it right. The characters dress much like the region they’re representing and yes America, we’re a lot more sexually uptight than about any other country around. A gypsy by any other name is still a gypsy right? Do we dress like gypsies? No. Ariel would look downright silly in a buttondown shirt and Levis wouldn’t she? It’s make believe people!

Children have a right to pretend and escape just as much as we do. Calgon and Disney have a lot in common, only Disney works a MESSLOAD better.

And yes, I have a daughter who STILL adores Disney Princesses, but she’s 16 now and her adoration is on a level that might shock you. She doesn’t even notice the clothes now. Amazing isn’t it? She respects these girls because they’re all strong and yes independent women. Falling in love does NOT make you dependent on a man and the fact of the matter is they’re basically ALL Cinderella stories. We all need to believe in that happy ending don’t we?

Let’s all remember that these are little girls and not rob them of their visions of happy endings so soon. Heaven knows they’re hard enough to come by as it is.

Instead focus your energy on what happens after the Disney Princess stage, the Abercrombie and Aeropostale ideas of what a teenage girl should dress like, the model industry that tells them if they’re not 100 feet tall and weigh less than a head of cabbage they’re not pretty, oh and the show business industry who shows them on a daily basis that anything goes, and the worse the behavior the more publicity it gets you.

As parents we need to take a long hard look at what goes on in our homes, and no matter how much our little girls love Mulan or Esmerelda or Ariel or Cinderella, Mom will almost always be their hero. Show them that we can be feminine and charming and strong and independent all at the same time, that we can be smart and successful and still be a loving wife and mother, and most of all? Spend time with them, REAL TIME, talking, sharing, exploring together, the secret I think is not in being your daughter’s best friend, but being a Mom when you need to and her best friend whenever you can be.

As a child I wanted to be Belle. She loved reading and was not inclined to marry Gaston when he tried to force her. She said no. Then eventually falls in love with the beast, not because he is good looking or that he is a prince, because he is kind to her and they get on. I think she is the best princess in terms of role models!

My daughter is one year old and already has princess bed covers, curtains, books and dvds. I do not worry about this at all because it is just her imagination! When she is old enough to get involved with boys she will know right and wrong and when she is 18 I am sure she will not be trying to act like a cartoon character!

A good parent can balance letting a child make some choices while protecting them at the same time. The more a child is restricted the more it will rebel later on. Talk to them about things and keeping things light and fun is what makes my little girl and nephews happy!

Thanks Dr. Robyn for presenting my article on the topic. I appreciate it very much.

Instead, here are two hilarious ‘princess discussions’ and useful tactics from one of my favorite insightful bloggers who is currently on hiatus while writing a book!

“Outside the Toy Box” points to the need for “deploying some princess” to defuse their power (which was my strategy with my own girl ) creating active play (in this case voting, so they became little rubberized ‘political princesses’) and deconstructing the ‘princess hierarchy’ of race revealed through popularity of commercial face time, which has always received my cocked eyebrow as well.

http://outside-the-toybox.com/good-morning-angels-good-morning-charlie/2007/12/10/

http://outside-the-toybox.com/this-is-not-a-blog-post/2008/03/25/

I’ll add that last week when I listened to CCFC’s Dr. Susan Linn on “The Case for Make Believe” she had some funny anecdotes (and antidotes!) for princess play, when she described being cast in the role of ‘rescuing prince’ by a wee one flailing in pretend water who needed to be saved. Instead of playing into the stereotype, she quickly shifted the focus and had the prince say he couldn’t swim!

Then she had him ‘dive in’ via roleplay and start flailing alongside her, patiently screaming the same ‘help, help’ as the little girl, who finally, eventually, 15 minutes later, tired of the game, suddenly ‘remembered’ she knew how to swim, saved prince charming’s keister and moved on to a new storyline. Ah, poetic justice.

I actually use these ‘what ifs’ a lot in our Shaping Youth counter-marketing to debunk stereotypes, come up with healthier cues, and ‘rewrite the script’ with kids coming up with ‘different’ endings. It’s a lot of fun, and VERY creative and stimulating to see what the kids ‘do…’

In my daughter’s princess phase I used to create a ‘serial’ story, which continued each night based on her interests at the time, to ‘work through’ some of these fascinations and tweak the content in new directions…little tougher now that she’s a teen confronting the uber-sexualized cues, but still worth a story thread now and then of ‘what ifs’…shifting to my own nostalgic ‘embarrassing moments’ to share stories, empathize, and mostly just listen.

Susan Linn DID make a HUGE global point that needs addressing with the princess posse in that she took the pretend play context and showed how kids judgments can be tied to a Disney-lens…e.g. Preschoolers admonishing peers for the ‘wrong’ princess costume, narrowing the worldview of fantasy overall, because everyone ‘knows’ Cinderella is in ‘blue.’ That kind of thing…

Really loved all your positive tips, as usual Dr. Robyn, and I’ll try to think of a few more to plop in the comments here, as the whole ‘happily ever after’ bit definitely needs reinforced as a self-driven existential state rather than being a ‘lady in waiting.’

Great topic…and hey, that licensing billboard issue is a separate post in itself. (what happens when a brand loses control of their identity, why some societal norms find this less offensive than others on a global scale, while others are through the roof with alarm, etc.) ttys, Amy

Thanks for your insightful comment. Your article on the sexualization of girls on your blog is fascinating. Sometimes I wonder if we’ve all just lost our minds.

I remember when we all used to wear our Wonder-Woman Underroos in the 70s or early 80s– Wonder Women was the one with the “sports bra-type” top. We thought we were so cool. It made us feel grown up– but still– we were trying to be like Wonder Woman, a very cool superhero, not like Lolita, as many of these new clothes suggest.

Do you think the girls today would think we were splitting hairs? Was there outrage at the Wonder Woman underoos set? Would the young girls of today cite our “days of the week” underwear as the same as their “eye-candy” underwear?

As a Child Development Expert and advocate for girls, I don’t like these new developments at all. It’s as if people think it’s as harmless as dressing their dog in a sweater that says “bad to the bone” on it. We can all see why girls love the stuff though– it makes them feel grown up, more like “Mommy” or “Aunt so-and so” or their babysitter– they don’t know, and they need us to guide them to realize that it also makes others look at them as more grown up than they are…and that, most definitely is not a good thing most of the time.

Dr. Robyn

# insane mama Says: Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 1:24 pm

Bless you for supporting the modesty… I am so sick of girls walking around with NO modesty at all!
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# kelly Says: Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 3:42 pm

dr. robyn’s got it goin’ on. great advice….and so southern-sounding. it’s the secret of a gracious lady to focus on the positive.
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# Nicole Says: Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 6:26 pm

See … make up your own stories about the princesses. I feel so smart now.
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# Lis Garrett Says: Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 6:53 pm

While I don’t mind Barbie and Princesses (NO BRATZ – and when I say “Barbie,” I mean “My First Barbie”), I could NOT imagine my girls dressing like those in the picture. EW. There’s just something wrong with that.