Not All Princesses Dress in Pink

Ever since the day I found out Magoo was a girl, I started (over) thinking about the stereotypes of women that she will be exposed to.  These days, girls are lucky because they do have some very strong role models they can look up to; unfortunately however, there are many more bad than good.

Once Magoo turned three, she hit what most mothers of little girls will recognize as “the princess phase,” and I think it’s safe to say that she kind of took this phase to an extreme.  All of a sudden, she was insisting on wearing tiaras and tutus and “ball gowns” everywhere we went.  I couldn’t refer to her by her name; instead, I had to call her whatever Disney princess she was pretending to be at the moment.  Sometimes we would be late to events because she would insist on bringing (imaginary) Cinderella and Belle with her into the back of the van.  Once I even caught her choreographing an entire princess ballet.  It has been an interesting year to say the least.

All the while, I’ve been a bit torn about this.  On the one hand, her imagination is developing tremendously.  It takes a lot of creative power to create imaginary worlds and inhabit them, and I’ve said all along that the most important intellectual trait I want for my children is creativity.  On the other hand, a lot of these princesses are a bit, shall we say, vapid.

I’m not one of those moms who lament how boys get to play with guns and be superheros while girls have to play with hairbrushes and mirrors, mainly because I don’t think the version of masculinity being branded to little boys is any more healthy than the one of femininity being marketed towards girls.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with dressing fancy.  And many classic fairy tales have some decent story lines… if only the princesses occasionally saved the princes.  What gets me are the spinoffs of the classic fairy tale storylines where an entire picture book will be all about how a prince bought a princess a beautiful gown or how the princess wants to get a present for the king but all she can think of is a hug.

So I started looking for alternative princess stories — ones that deviated a bit from the standard formula.  And that’s when I came across Not All Princesses Dress in Pink by Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple.

Each page has a princess doing different activities from playing soccer to dancing in the rain.  It reinforces the theme that a princess can be anything she wants to be.  She can have fun and run and be active.  She can slay dragons.  And each page ends by telling the reader that the princess is always wearing a sparkly crown.  It’s the best of both worlds — the princesses get to be both fun and fancy.

I know the princess debates are nearly as heated as the supposed mommy wars.  People have very strong opinions about how much princess girls should be exposed to.  I think it’s important to follow my children’s interests, and if that leads to princesses, that is just fine with me.  I just want to make sure they get a well rounded idea of what a princess (and a woman) is.

“Some princesses wear their jewels while fixing things with power tools” Not All Princesses Dress in Pink