Our Little Baby Blog

The Princess Trap

Most people who know me know that I've got a relatively low tolerance for princess crap. I wasn't a princess-y kinda girl myself and I just think that the fairy tale princess phenomena is nothing but a delusional commercial trap for young girls. Slap a princess on the package and all of a sudden young girls are begging their parents for toothbrushes and gloves and a bunch of stuff they truly don't need. I swore Anna would never be into that and that I wouldn't push anything on her whatsoever. Don't get me wrong, if all she wants for her birthday someday is a princess doll, we'll get her a princess doll, but I'm certainly not going to present that stuff a day earlier than necessary.

Enter Cinderella.

This is where my little idea of how things will go clashes with reality. My in-laws let us borrow a couple of movies for Anna to watch on the trips to and from Missouri, including Cinderella. I didn't really think much of it because it's kind of a sweet movie and since I wasn't pushing any other princess stuff I figured it wouldn't have such a dramatic impact. However, after watching it a few times on road trips and at home, she is hooked! (yes, sometimes I let her watch Cinderella when I have to get the house clean for a showing or I'm dealing with something dangerous like a hot stove and Anna won't cooperate. I'm a bad mother, I know this.)

Anna is obsessed with every character in that movie. She even started calling one of her dolls with a long skirt "Cinderella." We dance with Cinderella in the kitchen quite often and she has me "sing it" which kinda just means I sing Cinderella and then la la la and then say Cinderella again a bunch of times. She loves it though.

I knew that the obsession was getting out of hand though when Anna got a gift of some fairy pajamas from Mike's co-worker. Upon first glance they looked sorta princess-y so Anna freaked out and begged to wear them that night. You'd think she'd just discovered cashmere. Anna is still so obsessed with them that she wants to wear them every night (though she now calls them her fairy jammies) and all day long and cries like her heart has been broken when I explain that they are dirty and, yes, we have to wear other jammies.

I don't know what to think about all this. I mean, I've really got to say that I'm taken aback by how much she loves princess stuff. In fact, I've gone out of my way since she was born to check out books about trucks and dinosaurs, etc. from the library and make sure that I'm not pushing stereotypical "girly" stuff onto her. But, she really seems to be drawn to girly dresses, princess-y items and, of course, the color pink.

The latest development occurred this weekend. I dropped Mike and Anna off at Target while I went to the grocery store on Saturday morning. As soon as Mike put her in the car when I picked them up, I noticed that Anna was clutching a plastic package that seemed to hold some sort of princess item. My annoyance swelled as I told Mike I really didn't want anymore crap (princess or no princess) like that in our household. Mike then informed me that he let her hold it while she was in the store after she noticed it on an endcap (I do that too and then I drop it at the checkout counter). However, she got so excited about these two little princess dolls that she wouldn't let go of the package - at all. Anna had a death grip on it the entire trip and, finally, the checkout guy had to scan it while she was still holding it because she wouldn't even put it on the conveyer belt to purchase it.

Mike wasn't even entirely sure what the package held other than some random figurines. Turns out, it was key chains. Two princess key chains. Excellent. Mike unscrewed the key chain part of it (thank goodness, can you imagine if someone thought it was my key chain that I let her play with? Horror!) so now it's just little figurines. I sort of hid them away while she was distracted the other day and, of course, she hasn't mentioned them once so I'm thinking I might be able to pitch them altogether. We'll see.

What's a mother to do? Princess crap is just pervasive. This stuff is everywhere!


My approach right now is just to keep everything princess to a true minimum, but I've also got to acknowledge that she may just be into stuff I'm not in love with and try to be at peace with that.

Oy. Cinderella, you rascal. What have you done to my Anna?