Anyone else resisting frozen and other princess stuff?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do because I want my child to love her gorgeous black hair, brown eyes, and brown skin. I let her get into the music, but I refuse to buy her a blonde elsa wig.

I don’t know if this has already been mentioned, but you might like this book with all kinds of hair types:
https://www.amazon.com/Princess-Hair-Sharee-Miller/dp/0316441198/

[Anonymous]

The newer princesses only, because:

1.A woman directed Fozen 1 and 2; Anna saves Elsa by committing an act of true love; Olaf and Sven are awesome; Kristof is a grump.
2. Moana saves her island and is helped along the way by her mom and grandmother and a male Demi-god who has lost most of his powers.
3. Merida restores peace to their ancient land but first refuses to get married;She and her mom defeat the enemy bear.
4. Tiana works her butt off to realize her dream of owning a restaurant in New Orleans during the Jim Crow era. She is shown in stark contrast to the white rich girl who only dreams of a Prince Charming to marry.
5.Belle - the newer one - is the town outcast b/c she likes to read and is curious and smart. And she refuses to be like everyone else. I know, I know - the ending! But at least her journey is different.
6. Rapunzel. A good role model for kids with anxiety and OCD and dreams.


Cinderella, Snow White, Jasmine, etc, need modernizing. And I realize all the Princess stories have problems, but most stories are not perfect. And yes, I hate all the commercialization.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tremendous amount of defensiveness and projection in this thread. Not being into the whole Disney Princess machinery does not equal having a problem with frilly dresses and “girliness.” In fact, the conflation of the two kind of speaks to the success of said machinery. Also confused about how one is stubbornly and foolishly resisting The Inevitable Princessing by just... not watching a movie that, in many cases, the kid never even asks for. You MUST simply GET OVER YOURSELF and show your kid random movies you don’t care for— as if it’s actually hard work to simply... not show them to a kid who isn’t asking for them. If your kid is asking for them, well, that’s another story. But it’s totally fine for a parent not to show a THREE year old whatever they’d rather the child didn’t see... even if it’s a mild preference on the part of the parent. You don’t have to show them anything!

IME, as a mother of four girls, for many people it DOES. Not everyone of course, but in my experience having raised girls in the past two decades and getting to know dozens and dozens of other families with girls, there is a gigantic overlap between the families who “don’t do” princesses and who discourage things like pink and sparkles and tutus.

[Anonymous]

I tried. I swear. But the Princess Industrial Complex won. 90% of my daughter's Hanukkah presents for Frozen related. My parents bought so much dollar store crap for her

I take comfort in the fact that she has lots of interest not just princesses. And that her interest in princesses is mostly because they wear cool dresses and have adventures

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tremendous amount of defensiveness and projection in this thread. Not being into the whole Disney Princess machinery does not equal having a problem with frilly dresses and “girliness.” In fact, the conflation of the two kind of speaks to the success of said machinery. Also confused about how one is stubbornly and foolishly resisting The Inevitable Princessing by just... not watching a movie that, in many cases, the kid never even asks for. You MUST simply GET OVER YOURSELF and show your kid random movies you don’t care for— as if it’s actually hard work to simply... not show them to a kid who isn’t asking for them. If your kid is asking for them, well, that’s another story. But it’s totally fine for a parent not to show a THREE year old whatever they’d rather the child didn’t see... even if it’s a mild preference on the part of the parent. You don’t have to show them anything!

Lol, my kid’s super hippie dippy Montessori preschool, then her DC charter was all princesses all the time. Same with the playground and anywhere else preschool aged kids congregate. Good luck having an extroverted kid not ask for them when they’re the talk of the (preschool) town.

Just for another example we've never shown my kid and episode of paw patrol because we don't have cable and I find the show to be really insipid and my daughter still knows all the characters by preschool osmosis. I've never shown her half of the Disney movies but she could still recognizes them by sight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I resisted but daycare was the culprit. One of the teachers brought all her daughters old princess dresses to school for dress up and my daughter was sold. FWIW the boys dressed up in the princess dresses too. She’s super into Frozen and I agree that Frozen is a better movie than the more traditional princess movies that I grew up on.

I also donated a bunch of princess dresses to my daughter's preschool class and both the boys and girls love wearing them. It can be really fun to wear a big sparkly poofy dress. My daughter's obsession with princesses is very much around their outfits. I don't think she really registers any other aspects of Princessdom

[Anonymous]

Haven't read all the responses, but OP - have you SEEN Frozen? I can't imagine why someone would condemn Frozen. It's a wonderful movie with a great message about sibling love. Disney has improved their storylines quite a bit since I was a child - Frozen, Moana, Brave to name a few, have strong female leads that I am proud to have my daughter dress up as.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Haven't read all the responses, but OP - have you SEEN Frozen? I can't imagine why someone would condemn Frozen. It's a wonderful movie with a great message about sibling love. Disney has improved their storylines quite a bit since I was a child - Frozen, Moana, Brave to name a few, have strong female leads that I am proud to have my daughter dress up as.

Absolutely this. I have friends that are anti-princess but haven't seen any of the new movies. Ariel, Belle, Jasmine of "our" parent generation and the earlier ones were pretty awful, but the new ones are great and empowering! It's Disney, so it's not perfect and I still don't love the consumerism aspect, but much better and more substantive than Paw Patrol or the vast majority of other kid shows. My kid didn't flinch at her flu shot because she said she was going to be brave like Merida, and taught herself to swim so she could be like Moana. Who cares if she wants to wear a sparkly dress while learning those lessons??

[Anonymous]

Nope. I really don't think the whole princess thing is as harmful as people make it out to be. Plus, like others have said, the newer Disney princesses--some of whom aren't even princesses--are way better in terms of role models than the old ones.

DD (3) loves Elsa and Anna, but hasn't really seen the others because she's fairly sensitive and gets scared easily from movies and TV shows. She also loves dinosaurs, trains, blocks, Winnie the Pooh, Pete the Cat, etc.

It's all about exposing them to a wide range of toys and stories. For us, the only line is violent toys, so no toy guns or anything like that.

[Anonymous]

I felt similarly but once my DD actually got into princess stuff, I wasn't as worried. She'll put on her Elsa gown and declare that she's "going to work" and will go scribble in a notebook and pretend to take calls on a play phone. She'll put on her princess gloves and play doctor, or she'll put on her tiara and play cars or legos with her older brother. She loves all things pink and purple and the more sparkles, the better. But she also loves to play outside and she'll wear truck t-shirts with a tulle skirt (for twirling, naturally).

The thing I had feared about DD being interested in princess stuff was that she would learn to be this helpless, fragile girl waiting for a man to solve all the problems and whose entire identity would be tied to a boy. So far I've seen nothing to suggest that's how my DD is interpreting any of this and fortunately, we have several examples of modern Disney characters (Moana, Mulan, Merida, Elsa, Tiana) to point to as examples of girls taking care of themselves, being leaders, and solving their own problems.

[Anonymous]

Never took a position on it, but my DD saw it and could take or leave it. She likes dogs. I do however 100% condemn condemning things because they are "girly." That is so antiquated and ridiculous, and, more to the point, tutus, makeup, spa stuff, glitter - none of it is the domain exclusively of girls, even less so now than ever. And if it were, condemning it would still be backward. Wake up and smell 2020. Also, if you don't brush your hair or shop because #patriarchy, you need a reboot.

[Anonymous]

I didn't worry about it either way -- we watched the movies, had a few costumes, and DD eventually moved on. Doesn't seem like such a big deal to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I felt similarly but once my DD actually got into princess stuff, I wasn't as worried. She'll put on her Elsa gown and declare that she's "going to work" and will go scribble in a notebook and pretend to take calls on a play phone. She'll put on her princess gloves and play doctor, or she'll put on her tiara and play cars or legos with her older brother. She loves all things pink and purple and the more sparkles, the better. But she also loves to play outside and she'll wear truck t-shirts with a tulle skirt (for twirling, naturally).

The thing I had feared about DD being interested in princess stuff was that she would learn to be this helpless, fragile girl waiting for a man to solve all the problems and whose entire identity would be tied to a boy. So far I've seen nothing to suggest that's how my DD is interpreting any of this and fortunately, we have several examples of modern Disney characters (Moana, Mulan, Merida, Elsa, Tiana) to point to as examples of girls taking care of themselves, being leaders, and solving their own problems.

Do you realize now that your unrealized fears were ridiculous? I mean, presumably you watched Snow White or read Sleeping Beauty or some other princess story as a kid and weren’t negatively impacted. You realize your adult interpretation/over-analyzation of princess stories projected all kinds of imagined negativity that kids simply don’t notice or absorb, right?

So silly.

PS - My son loves Frozen as well as unicorns. My only concern is that some jerky kid or mom will tease him or pass judgment.

[Anonymous]

I loved princesses when growing up, so no I did not discourage my kids. In fact, I bought them so many princess related things. They are into Barbies, Princesses (Elsa, Anna, Belle, Rapunzel etc) and LOL dolls, unicorns, fairies. I love watching them pretend to be princesses and enjoy it as much as they do.

[Anonymous]

This is a great game! It's very interesting, and I like it very much, although it's not so good as Disney Frozen Adventure. I think that Disney's game is better, because there is a much more interesting gameplay. You have to help Anna, Elsa and Olaf rebuild the kingdom, host a big gala, design and decorate every room to make it very special for visitors. I have even found some tricks and tips for that game on playoholic.com , so it became even more interesting!