Princess Lessons: Stranger Danger

Poppet and Pixie love the Disney princesses. They never tire of watching the movies, “reading” the magazines, role-playing various scenes or singing their favourite songs. There is a lot of talk around the Internet whether it’s appropriate for Christians to let their children watch movies that include magic and witches; or if feminist moms’ little girls should be watching movies that convey patriarchal messages where the man is always the hero riding to the rescue; or if, in a world with an unhealthy idea of beauty, little girls should idolise the Disney version of what it means to be pretty.

Look, if you’re that worried, then you might as well throw out your TV, never venture out of your house, and keep your kids away from other children. I tried my best to keep Poppet in the dark about the existence of a certain annoying purple dinosaur, but as soon as she started school, she started singing the theme song and even told me she loved him. It was a dark day in our family.

Satan himself. {Image credit: ssb.wikia.com}

My point is this: yes, Disney’s princess movies are full of gender stereotypes and questionable elements, but they contain some important lessons too.

So, here is the first in my series of Princess Lessons:

Image credit: thistlespace.org

Snow White, the fairest of them all, doesn’t exactly conform to today’s standard of beauty. She’s curvy, and her curves tell my daughters that beauty does not equate to being skinny. She also shows my daughters that they don’t have to be blonde to be beautiful.

Snow White’s stepmother is insanely jealous of Snow White’s beauty, and tries to have her killed. My daughters see that beauty is not necessarily an advantage in life and that it can cause problems for a person: unwanted male attention; unfair assumptions about intelligence, personality, ambitions; and unfair expectations, to list a few.

Snow White is far too trusting. Not all of her choices are bad, though. The seven men she moves in with turn out to be good guys, but trusting an old woman almost gets Snow White killed. Poppet and Pixie are friendly little girls who greet everyone they see. I’m working on getting the “don’t talk to strangers” lesson across.

Snow White isn’t afraid of hard work. Once she moves in with the dwarfs, she cooks for them and keeps their house tidy. My girls need all the encouragement they can get when it comes to tidying their rooms. (Confession time: I am not the most diligent housewife, so perhaps I can stand to learn a thing or two from Snow White as well.)

What are your thoughts on Disney princesses?

Three Going On 13

Ah, school. Wonderful institutions of learning and socialization. Poppet started pre-school last year and has flourished in so many ways. She’s made friends with everyone at school, and I do mean everyone. She knows the names of all the children and all the teachers. She’s learning numbers and the alphabet and children’s songs.

Of course, there are ways in which her behaviour hasn’t benefited so well. Her eating habits took a bit of a dive but they’re back on track now. Sort of. Sometimes. She did accuse me of trying to feed her poisoned fish the other night (but for that I blame Snow White).

Occasionally, she says things that disturb me. (I’m not talking about, “I love Barney, Mommy!” although every parent feels a soul-crushing horror on hearing those words.) I’ve had to explain to her that “stupid” is not an acceptable word in our house, even in the context of, “Stupid fly!” I had to make her understand “Oh, my God!” isn’t respectful to God. We’re still working on getting her to stop yelling, “Leave me alone!” when she doesn’t get her way.

Three is harder than Two. She’s discovering her own strength of will and pushing limits of acceptable behaviour every chance she can get. We’ve had to learn to choose our battles – does it really matter if she has Otees or Weetbix for breakfast? – but there are some lines that need to be firmly drawn before a precocious threenager turns into a little tyrant.

The latest gem from her lips was, “You’re destroying my life!” What was this unreasonable thing we were asking her to do? Finish her supper. I know, terrible parents, aren’t we?

She confirmed she learnt it at school, and was made to understand that there would be unpleasant consequences if she ever said that to either of us again. A short while later, we heard a mumbled, “It’s not fair.”

I honestly thought we had at least ten years before she started with that. Three going on 13. Fun times.