i really, really could've written your entry, though not nearly as well.  i am tomboy, hear me roar, but i do like pink on my daughters, maya and abby.  but princesses? hell no.  and disney princesses?  hell hell no.  much of it is the princess mentality... the fact that even when disney makes clever independent princesses, they are always happiest in the end when they find their man.  and the fact that NONE of the independent clever stuff gets translated into the caverns of material CRAP that disney puts out for sale.  it's all about being pretty and sweet and boy crazy and definitely not about being black.  the fact that it's taken disney over 58 years to start working on an african-american princess makes my skin crawl.  we avoid disney and said princesses like the plague.

until today, when i was beaten by a virtual 5 year old (thought i was out of the woods, but she's a preschooler too).  maya's 5th birthday is next monday, and she wants a "princess cake".  my skin itching, i asked why.  because becka and lillie and annie had princess cakes, of course.  i suggested scads of other things maya likes better... even a barack obama cake (i was desperate, ok?). but no, it's a princess cake she wants. it's her birthday. she is 5.  i said yes.  it was the right thing to say.

but i developed a plan.  i found a cute princess cake and figured i could put a very princess-y looking black doll in the middle, satisfying both of our agendas.

http://jas.familyfun.go.com/...

i showed it to her and asked what she thought.  her answer?  no mama, i want one with belle and jasmine and whatever else all their names are.  uggggggh.  so i've lost.  a disney princes cake it will be, but we're going with jasmine, who is brown and loved to outsmart jafar.  

i absolutely feel your pain, but i guess if the disney machine is the worst we come up against as moms to girls, we will count our lucky stars?

You and I were separated at birth.  Give it time, this too shall pass.  

--R

My daughter likes to play with her cars wearing her cinderella dress and ballet slippers.

your post brought back vivid memories of the "Barbie Birthday" of my daughter's early childhood.  After years of telling her "no Barbie" and coaching her to say "Barbie has a weird body" and buying all sorts of non-girly toys, she got FLOODED with Barbie stuff for her 5th birthday.  Why? Because most of her friends were boys, their moms didn't know what to buy for a 5yo girl, so the boys asked my DD and she said (to each and every one) "I want Barbie".  LOLOL all my hard work down the drain!  She then went on to insist on wearing a dress or skirt every single day in kindergarten and first grade, and growing her hair long to have a long ponytail ("like Sarah's" lol)

Well, we rode it out. And I can reassure you that right now (16 3/4), she is SO not a girly-girl!  She likes clothes, but not overly-girly and not in the obsessive way that many girls her age are.  

I think your longterm relationship with your daughter will have more influence than some Ariel wannabe in a tiara LOL

"what you resist persists"

DD wasn't gonna wear pink, or love princesses or play with Barbies.... yep.  She knocked em down one at a time.  We have moved beyond most of the Princess stuff (DD is 6 1/2 now), but are fully into Barbie, Hannah/Miley.  

Good luck and embrace your wonderful new pink princess future...it will pass soon enough.

Like so many of you (what is up with that?!), I could have written this same story. Except my nemesis is at kindergarten and her name is Ella. Is it permissible to really hate a child that you don't know? I hate Ella. Ella has big sisters, and thus has access to completely age-inappropriate crap that I really didn't want to have to deal with yet. Ella likes to say things like "your shoes are ugly". Then my daughter won't wear those shoes anymore. I live in fear every time she goes to school with new clothes. If Ella decides that they are unacceptable, it's all over. And Ella loves Barbie.

I'm a tomboy from way back. I never played with dolls. I was given Barbies for Christmas one year, and I promptly decapitated them to find out how their hair was attached and sliced into their knees to find out what made them click. My mother thought I was destined to be a serial killer. So when DD came home asking for Barbie, I nearly blew a gasket. No way. No how. If it's a choice between Bratz and Barbie, I'll go for Barbie. But it isn't that choice. She hasn't ever even seen a Barbie. She doesn't know what it is. She just wants Barbie stuff. Over my dead body.

I took her to the shops the other day to buy fishing rods for our trip. We chose rods for her brother and her friend that came with us. Then she looked up, saw (ACK!) a Barbie pink backpack fishing rod kit and said "I WANT THE BARBIE ONE!". The conversation follows:
me: No.
DD: Why not?
me: I don't like Barbie.
DD: Why?
me: I don't like what she teaches girls about their bodies.
DD: But Ella likes Barbie.
me: That's Ella's mommy's choice. Different families have different rules.
DD: But I like Barbie.
me: You don't even know what Barbie is.
DD: But I like Barbie.
me: sigh. Okay. Let's try something else. That fishing rod isn't a good one. The people that make Barbie want to make lots of money, so they put a picture of Barbie on a flimsy fishing rod to make you want to buy it. The red one is a better rod. It has more things in the set and it will last longer. You won't even be able to fish very well with the Barbie one.
DD. But I want the Barbie one.
me: I give up. No. You may have the red one. If you keep asking, I'm going to buy your brother one and you'll have to ask him to borrow it.
DD: silence

I won. Barely. But I've been doing a lot of thinking. Is it really Barbie that bothers me so badly? Not really. It's not age appropriate, and I'm keeping her from it for as long as possible. But it's just a doll. What bothers me is the endless amount of crap that is marketed at my daughter with Barbie on it. And the endless arguments that we could have based on whether or not she NEEDS the Barbie sunglasses. So I've put my foot down. No branding. I don't care that much about the toys and movies. Watch Dora and Ariel all you want. But I am not buying Ariel pencils. I refuse. And I don't give a damn what Ella has.

deal over this stuff.   I have said this over and over again here -- I had EVERY barbie known to man -- I had the skipper that grew boobs when you twisted her arm and she was my favorite.  I had the plane, the beach bus, the pool.  I performed daily girly heterosexual weddings between barbie and ken in my room where assorted midges and skippers threw confetti at them.  

and I grew up to be a feminist lesbian who gives a fuck about body image don't wear makeup short haired strong independent woman.  

sometimes a pricness is just a princess you know?   Besides i always tell Liza that my favorite princess is Belle b/c she loves to read and doesn't want anything to do with the stupid handsome man -- I like Ariel b/c she rebels against the role her father created for her -- I like Jasmine b/c she sneaks out of the palace for a ROCKING carpet ride over Agrabah.  

and my new favorite princess?  Whatsername from Enchanted -- who ROCKS.  What an awesome movie.  

sometimes a princess isjust a princess....

But not the war!  Your post was funny, but I do understand your distress.  I only have a little boy, and I know it's not nearly as bad, but try finding anything that doesn't have a baseball, basketball, or football on it.  Our idea for DS is that his worth isn't dependent on his athletic skills.  I admit, I have a lot of problems with the sports culture, particularly in the professional leagues, in this country.  My hope is that DS likes an activity he can participate in all his life, like cycling, swimming, running, or climbing.  But I'm also getting sick of clothes with trucks, tools, & dinosaurs.  DS wears a lot of animal- and music-themed clothes.

I was also thinking the other day, why don't little boys want to be princes?  Princes seem cool.  They are rich, handsome, brave, adventurous, get to ride a horse and have a sword and slay dragons.  Not enough sparkle?  Boys don't like sparkle?  DS likes to put on my slip-on shoes and shuffle around (they're smaller than his dad's, so I think it's easier).  He also has a sunglasses case that looks like a small purse.  He will sling it over his wrist, walk to the door, and say, "Bye bye!" like he's going shopping. Not too hard to see where he got that!  I think it's cute, but I bet it would freak out my conservative FIL.  He once told me it was a "good thing" DS doesn't care for stuffed animals.

to post about our Disney vacation last month, but just haven't had the chance.  

This diary reminded me about the "Bibbity Bobbity Boutique"... a new place in the Magic Kingdom where you can turn your little girl into a princess.  

I knew it would be expensive... it's Disney for cripesakes.  I kept seeing little girls in the park... hair all done up with sparkles and beautiful princess gowns, shoes, crowns... you get the picture.  When I looked into it, I found out it cost $300.  Yes... three hundred fricken dollars!!!!!!!!  I could NOT believe it.  I can't imagine spending that kind of dough for my daughter to be a princess.  Yikes.  

I have boys and haven't had to deal with this, but a good friend of mine is in a very similar situation. She's a mountain climbing, soccer playing kind of woman and her four-year old daughter is obsessed with pink and purple clothes and is very into the ballerina/princess thing.

The other day my friend went to pick her daughter up from preschool and her daughter was very upset. She had had an accident and the teachers had dressed her in some extra clothes they had at school. (I guess her bin was empty.) My friend thought her daughter was upset b/c she was embarrassed about the accident. Nope. She was crying because her teachers had dressed her in pants.

Our 9 month old has beautiful dark brown skin and very very curly hair.  I can't let the Disney stuff get into our house.  I just can't.  It may be marketed to our  3 year old but it does absolutely nothing for our 9 month old.

Case in point -- in Under the Sea the sea witch, Ursula, looks far more like my our 9 month old than Ariel does.  What exactly would that teach my daughter?  Disney just doesn't have many positive images for children who aren't white.  

I feel the princess pain but it's the Disney stuff that I just can't handle.  And on this one I'm just going to be the mean mommy.

I've been fighting the Disney Princess demon with my 2 YO, but she still calls herself a Princess. I have no idea where it came from because she is the ONLY girl at daycare.

WHY do the Disney Princesses bother me so much??

IMHO, and to put it simply... they SUCK! At least super heroes go around saving people, have special powers and talents.... Princesses have stupid man problems, they rebel against their fathers (cause Mom is always dead) and all they want to do is wait around to be saved. Not at all the type of woman to be admired.

(sigh)

This is my mantra of parenting that helps to keep me quasi sane.  It comes and I hate it, it goes and I miss it.  

Truly.  I hated the bright pink sandals that DD had when she was 3. They matched nothing and she wore them every day.  It drove me crazy. But now, I remember it somewhat fondly. I mean when I see pictures, she was so little and so cute and loved the shoes so much....why did I care?

DD at 14 looks girly (petite with long curly hair) but is a green belt in tae kwon do. She likes jewelry and nailpolish, but hates pink.  She's a mix and her own person for sure.  

The teen phases also come and go just like the earlier ones did... but now I handle it with more grace.  This too shall pass!

And we've got My Little Ponies out the wazoo.  (One interesting progressive side effect of the ponies is that, since they're all female, the Pony Castle is matter-of-factly presided over by a "two mommies" couple!)

But we've successfully avoided Bratz, and have very little in the way of Barbie.

And my princess-loving, dress-enthusiast girlie-girl also loves creepy-crawly things and wants to be an entomologist when she grows up.

Every home must find its own balance! :-)

When I was pregnant, we said we wouldn't put anything pink on a girl until she was old enough to ask for it.  Then I had a boy, and then another boy.  So you can imagine how amusing I found it when my 2-year-old son demanded exclusively pink clothes!  Over a year later at age 3.5, he just ended his "pink phase," though he still wears pink sometimes.

Now that I've dressed my son in pink, I feel like I might dress a baby girl in pink (if we ever have one).  I've warmed up to the color a bit, and no longer see it as gender specific.

I was just wondering the other day, whether I ever had a princess phase.  I think I sort of did: I was obsessed with jewelry, which I think is somehow tied up in the early Tolkien influence.  And Thailand was a great place for such an obsession.  

But the jewelry-laden princesses I was obsessed with were always the sword-fighting kind, and often elves to boot.  And I didn't want to be them, just hang out with them or write their adventure stories.

As far as Disney goes, I'm a huge fan of Lilo and Stitch.

I named my daughter Aurora, so we got hit early.  My rule, so far has been: only the blue dress Sleeping beauty is allowed in the house.  Not the pink one.

It stemmed from hating pink, but I got lucky, Aurora is limited to almost ONLY pink here in the States (Cinderella gets blue).  Rory loves Batman and Spiderman, and I'm hoping those will stick, even against preschool (she starts her first program in May).

::crosses fingers::

I think the princess thing is so terrifying because they. don't. do. anything.  Spiderman is a hero...the girls all need rescuing.  I see the distinction, let me tell you.