Princess Party
One of our family friends has a little girl who is turning 4 this weekend. It is a "Princess Party". We are asked to dress like our favorite princess or prince.
I have no idea how to approach it. Well, I do but I'm not sure it's the "right" way to approach it. She already has a long, flowing, hand-me-down dress. She got some fancy socks and shoes as a Christmas gift. We also have a tiara somewhere. It'll be a half-assed princess but it'll look like we tried at least a little.
I'll just basically tolerate it. I won't get super excited or build it up too much. I won't gush over the other girls, other than engaging them as people. I won't let them see me roll my eyes too much.
And hope, hope, and hope again that she never wants to have a Princess Party of her own.
I have no idea how to approach it. Well, I do but I'm not sure it's the "right" way to approach it. She already has a long, flowing, hand-me-down dress. She got some fancy socks and shoes as a Christmas gift. We also have a tiara somewhere. It'll be a half-assed princess but it'll look like we tried at least a little.
I'll just basically tolerate it. I won't get super excited or build it up too much. I won't gush over the other girls, other than engaging them as people. I won't let them see me roll my eyes too much.
And hope, hope, and hope again that she never wants to have a Princess Party of her own.
posted by Amanda Shankle-Knowlton | 6:16 AM
4 Comments:
Allowing your kids to dress up isn't bowing to the patriarchy. My son has both a fairy princess dress and a firefighter outfit. He has a toy tool bench and a toy kitchen and makes us things equally from both.
Should I have discouraged the tool bench and firefighter outfit to avoid a label of chauvinist? They're things he's interested in and wants to explore. I think that's the most natural thing.
In my mind, pushing him in one direction in order to buck societal pressures is as bad as pushing him in the other direction to appease those same pressures. If I make that decision for him, it takes his personal wants, will, and character completely out of the process.
It's a dress-up party. Halloween in February. Does her dressing like a princess make her any more a ward of the patriarchy than her dressing like a ghost for Halloween would make her a tool of a necromancy?
Besides, did you ask her if she wanted to dress as a prince? :)
Thanks - I agree completely. We should just let our kids be who they are.
To my recollection, I don't think I've actively discouraged dressing up. I engage her and take an interest in what she's doing. I just don't get too wrapped up in it to the point where she thinks that she needs to dress up in order to make me happy.
I'm probably steering her in the direction I want her to go in in very passive, subtle ways. Maybe that's not good. If she takes an interest in princess garb, I smile and nod and call her beautiful. If she takes an interest in jigsaw puzzles or a calculator or tools, I am much more encouraging and enthusiastic in how I interact with her.
But maybe that's what I need to do to attempt to counter everything that's being done out in the world - on TV and with friends and at school - so that perhaps the sum total of her interactions will cancel out and leave her free to be who she is.
Parenting is hard.
Parenting and trying to be gender neutral is even harder than just straight-up parenting. But if I can add some encouragement: My daughter went through a "princess/dress-up phase" for a while and we neither encouraged it nor discouraged it (even subtly). Somewhere she picked up the idea that it was fine for a princess to wield a sword and save people ;) Not long after, she decided she hated all that stuff. Since then, her tastes have changed every year or so, but never went back to "princess" or super-girly.
Maybe its best to just "plant the seed" that a princess can do a lot more than just sit around looking pretty. Let it go from there, and likely your daughter won't disappoint!
BTW, There are some cool princess role models in Hayao Miyazaki films, and I vaguely remember other princesses in books and movies we used to enjoy with her (and I can't remember now...ugh)
Barbara - That sounds like a good approach. Maybe "what do you want to do when you're a princess?"
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