Anyone who knows me, knows that I have progressive views about women and their roles in life. I don't buy into typical gender roles. I think women can work outside of the home and be anything they desire to be. I think men can stay at home. I think little boys can be dancers and little girls can be athletes. I refuse to put limitations on what my children should do. I want them to be happy. And if that means Nur is a ballerina and TT is a football player, than so be it.
Imagine my surprise when from a very early age I realized that TT was going to be all about dolls, barbies, and most of all. . . PRINCESSES!!! She is obsessed. Absolutely obsessed. She owns many play dresses, and everyday, she is wearing a princess dress. For Halloween, she wanted to be Cinderella. For Christmas, she wanted a Cinderella barbie. On TV, she want to watch Cinderella, or Tangled, or Beauty and the Beast, or her new favorite, Sophia the First. She loves EVERTHING princess, and I truly did nothing to push her towards that.
In a couple of weeks, I am taking TT to a Princess Ball. The city of Minneapolis has this annual event and I thought it would be fun for TT and I to experience together. Kids get all dressed up, and it's a dance, and they get to meet Cinderella. So today I ventured out to the mall (aka the Mall of America, where someone apparently famous was performing, and therefore it was nuts!) to visit the Disney store and get TT a princess dress for the occassion.
I was looking around the Disney store, and trying to figure out if I wanted TT to be Belle, or Tinkerbell, or Ariel, or. . . . . . . And I got really philosophical as I looked for the perfect dress. Life is hard. Really really hard. We go to college and hope to get good jobs, and then we spend our lives working really hard, for sometimes not a lot of money, and trying to enjoy our free time when we can. We have bills, and responsibilities. We have compex relationships that we try our best to navigate, but that often leave us feeling defeated. We have daily, human struggles. As we get older, we learn more and more truths about life, and sometimes those truths aren't pretty. The older we get the more we also realize that we are in so much of this life stuff alone, and that we need to be strong and soldier through.
So, here I have this two year old that thinks life is magical. She thinks that she is beautiful, and a princess, and that if she projects kindness into the world, that all of her dreams will come through. She has an innocence that I envy, and that I never want her to lose. Life is simple to her, and there is something magical about putting on a beautiful gown, and getting "pretties" in her hair, and swirling.
I want to bottle up her dreams and possibilities. I want her to believe in the power of princesses if it helps her to believe in herself. I want her to believe in all of this.
So, I'm okay with this princess obsession. I know she will have the rest of her life for reality. I want her to believe in make believe for as long as she is able. I truly want all of her dreams to come true.
3 comments:
Since high school I've been involved in a medieval re-enactment group, complete with kings and queens and princes and princesses (they rotate every 6 months). One of my friends was Princess a few years ago, and she commented on how strange becoming an idol for little girls was, how little girls seem to have a princess-shaped hole in them that caused them to flock to her (she's otherwise not really a kid person). This comment always stuck with me, and this past summer and fall when I had the great privilege of being queen of my region, I got to see the phenomenon for myself, especially went I went to one of the far reaches of the region for a week's visit, and the 7 year old daughter of my hostess was just enthralled at having The Queen staying in her bedroom. But what I also noticed was that there was a complementary part of me which loved being the Queen that the little girls were enthralled by, to be the person who could give them that magic. It was very rewarding.
Anyway, longwinded and rather roundabout comment to say that there's no reason that TT can't be a princess all her life, and that by doing so she can fulfil not only her dreams, but also those of others!
And in Tangled, Rapunzel saves the Prince :)
Do you get to wear a princess dress too?
:)
I would choose Belle.
Post a Comment