When my son was four, he drew a picture of the nativity with
Mary hovering protectively over the baby Jesus.
Baffled by the series of red lines extending from Mary’s face, I asked
my son, “Is that supposed to be a halo?”
My son looked at me like I was nuts.
Greatly offended by my stupidity, he yelled, “No! Those are lasers
shooting out of her eyes, BECAUSE NOBODY BETTER TOUCH THE BABY JESUS!” I used to wonder where my son got that interpretation
of Mary. Today, the day after Halloween,
I see many parents saying sadly, “We promised no Disney princesses, but this is
what she really wanted to wear.” That’s
when I remembered what being a princess meant to me when I was a little girl.
Like many girls, I loved princesses. I incessantly drew princesses. I wrote stories about princesses. I read every book about princesses that I
could find. I tore all the pictures of
Disney princesses out of my coloring book and hung them up on the wall. And most of my weekends revolved around
dressing up as a princess and roaming our farm looking for adventure. None of those adventures were about finding a
prince and getting married.
My favorite princess was Rapunzel*. I had incredibly long hair as a kid that I
could weave into two very thick, potentially lethal braids. Much to my little brother’s dismay, my
Rapunzel did not spend much time in towers crying for someone to save her. My Rapunzel had BRAIDS OF DOOM. (In my defense, I didn’t realize how much
being hit with a five pound braid actually hurts.) Twirling my head like the blade of a table
saw, I would charge at my brother and smack him with my braids because he was
the evil wizard or dragon or vampire or whatever he had the misfortune to be
cast as upon that particular day.*
It’s a given that my princesses certainly could have used
some lessons in civility. My princesses
were filthy from climbing trees to look for enemy armies or wading through the
marsh to journey to the Island. My
princesses ate mud, swam creeks, and knew how to survive in the wilderness
without weeping for their warm beds and soft bread that wasn’t hard to
chew. My princesses found the treasure,
charmed the fairies, and fought the orcs.
My princesses sang stupid songs and wore pretty dresses, but they did
not giggle or cry or wait to be saved.
My princesses were two parts bravery and one part sheer cussedness.
Most adults thought I was a sweet little girl. My favorite color was pink. I adored dolls. I read constantly. I drew lots of hearts and
flowers. I insisted on long hair and I refused to wear pants. I didn’t do this to fool anyone or to mask my
identity as the hellion my poor little brother knew me to be. I did this because adult signifiers were
irrelevant to me. In my head, being a
princess did not in any way connect to accepting the traditional girl code. It meant that I was going to be what I wanted
to be and how I wanted to be, damn the consequences.
My son didn’t think there was anything incongruent about
Mary shooting lasers out of her eyes. He
also didn’t see anything irregular about putting on his Batman costume and
taking his baby doll for a walk in the stroller. He played tea party with his superhero “action
figures”.* He liked to walk around in
my shoes and play beautician (I learned the hard way that those little plastic
Play-doh scissors can’t cut hair, but they can sure as heck pull plenty of hair
out).
Gender codes aren’t taught by giving kids gendered toys or
gendered clothes. Gender codes are
taught by making kids believe that in order to play with certain toys or
clothes, they must accept the gender rules.
My guess is your little girl isn’t going to see her gender as having a
bunch of rules just because she likes playing princess. That comes with constantly reminding her that
in order to wear a princess costume, she has to follow the rules of being a princess. Let her wear the costume. Just don’t tell her that she shouldn’t climb
a tree in it because “that’s not what princesses do.”
*Technically Rapunzel isn’t a princess. Disney makes her into one, but my Grimm
version just had her as the daughter of some peasants who stole rampion from
the witch’s garden. I still played her as a princess when I was a kid.
*My brother rarely agreed to play princess with me and
usually ran for the house as soon as the battle started. It frustrated me that I had to play against
imaginary monsters when I had a perfectly good brother to play this part, but
my mother had a rule against me “forcing” my brother to play my games.
*They’re still dolls even if the toy industry did invent a
special name for them to make it okay for boys to play with dolls.
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