Pretty in Pink or the Dreadful Duchess?

We try to discourage princess culture in our house. Sure we have a couple of Disney movies featuring them, but most we watched once and returned to the thrift store. Cinderella is great at cleaning, and Belle comes from a poor family, right? Even without attending public school or watching tv Ruby manages to wish for royalty. Princess everything. Gross.

We tell her that princesses are boring and lazy. All they seem to do is sit around in cold stone houses wearing fancy dresses and bossing around the help. Sure there's the odd party but princessing is basically professional slothfulness. We try and re-route her love of fantasy and fluff more the direction of fairies, mermaids and ballerinas who don't base their worth on being the fairest in the land.

There is a great article by Rachael Combe about the ultra young sexualization of our girls here. She reinforces my belief that children thrive on praise and hugs and for girls the easiest way to garner compliments is by looking pretty. Once the chubby cute phase is over the next logical phase is sexy. Makes me want to move to a farm TOMORROW. However, we are not helpless! We can shower our girls with kisses and compliment them on their humor, their smarts, their drawing skills, dance moves, sister skills, singing voices, climbing powers, everything. Ask them what books they've been reading, what they want to be when they grow up, to teach you a song. They will glow under your praise and attention, focus on improving their rounded skills, and even manage to look beautiful while doing it.