The story starts with some sounds from a 4 year old girl's princess themed birthday party, with the reporting interjecting, "If you want to sell something to little girls right now, chances are you'll slap a princess on it. Disney princesses in particular work as the engine of a massive marketing campaign that fuels a $4 billion industry." They then interview Peggy Orenstein, author of a wonderful book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, who shares the following ideas:
"We feel like it retains or reinforces an innocence in little girls in a world that is feeling increasingly threatening and sexualizing of little girls," she says.
But Orenstein argues that the emphasis on beauty in princess culture doesn't protect little girls. Instead, she says, it primes them and puts them "on this sort of trajectory that [goes] from Disney princess at 3 and a full complement of Lip Smackers at 4 and Keeping Up with the Kardashians at 7 and America's Next Top Model at 11."
Orenstein points out that linking girls' development to appearance has been repeatedly shown to put them at risk for mental health issues such as depression and low self-esteem.
To which I find myself nodding in agreement. If we are friends, you know I like to cover myself head to toe in hot pink, and believe that glitter makes everything better. So in theory, I should be in LOVE with princesses, but instead, I cringe when I see a young girl playing with them, for reasons explained by Peggy above. What do you think about princesses? Am I over thinking this? Or they a harmless obsession for young girls or does it limit their imagination and lead to self esteem issues? Or, is the whole issue more gray than black and white?
I don't think the princesses are the biggest problem. Are they helping the issue? No, but I think real people (adults) are at fault for making girls feel valued based only on appearance. Young children copy what they hear. At least Rachel does. Most of the things she says I recognize as things that I've said or that she's heard on a movie. But they are movie quotes, not the ideas behind the movies. The Disney princess movies never say out loud, "I'm a worthwhile person because I'm thin and pretty". They HEAVILY imply it, but I don't think little kids are that great at picking up implications. Although that changes a lot with age.
ReplyDeleteFor me the problem is moms talking about how fat they are in front of their kids. Rachel has no idea what the word fat even means. And if it were up to me it would stay that way. But I'm pretty sure that as soon as she goes to kindergarten she'll hear other little girls talking about it. And that's where she'll pick it up.
My step mom once said (in front of a large group of family) that she didn't worry about teaching her kids healthy eating habits. She said if they overate then getting fat would be the punishment. She obviously has some pretty severe issues and she definitely passed them on to her daughter.
That right there sums up pretty much all our society's problems with appearance. As parents we have to stop teaching our kids that appearance is all that matters. They pick up on what we say at a very young age. For example, Rachel always says "How cute am I?" I know she says that because I say "look how cute you are!" all the time. She's quoting me!
Rachel watches princess movies, but she certainly won't be watching the Kardashians. Why? Because I don't watch it. If not for school she would never even know they existed. And when she does start finding out about that stuff at school we'll have to try and counterbalance it here at home.
Ok, that was a long comment :) I have trouble with being concise.
ReplyDeleteHa ha, I love it! Thanks for sharing Michelle. You are such an awesome mom - its evident in Rachel's tears about you being out of sharing time for 2 minutes! And your stepmom sounds super awesome and nurturing!
ReplyDeleteMichelle, being not concise is my middle name. Whatever the real word is. You said it very well. Sometimes more words are better than not as many.
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