The Perfect Baby Blog

Pink Alert: Princess mania getting even weirder!

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

"Sandwiched between her two brothers in the birth line-up, our 3-year-old daughter is the girliest girl I know. Every day, she wears a princess dress over her normal clothes and a tiara is a must. My husband and I encourage this princess obsession since a royal costume - and not a royal attitude - is the telltale sign." —Mom Marissa Loper (who does to seem to understand the meaning of "telltale sign"), on her decision to promote entitlement in a toddler.

SWEET SICKNESS: A squinty princess.

According to a new AP report, it’s finally dawning on certain parents that immersing their daughters in Disney’s Princesses crap—wands, tulle skirts, even castle-shaped alarm clocks (for the days when their daughters’ ladies-in-waiting fail to wake her gently)—might trigger a raging sense of entitlement.

Feminist sage Barbara Ehrenreich sounded a similar warning in 2007, but it was already too late: By now, princess mania has irreversibly regalized countless children and their parents. Two of my favorite examples:

1) Mary Dixon Lebeau
: This zesty, brainwashed lady writes the “Confessions from the Castle” blog for Disney’s helpful and purely altruistic “Parenting a Princess” site. Mary thinks it’s cute that her daughter introduces herself to teachers as “Princess Aurora.” Mary refers to a neighbor mom as “Queen Nicole.” Mary strikes a hard bargain with her daughter when it comes to negotiating tiara-wearing rules:

“You don’t have to wait until your birthday,” I told her. Then I explained that she could wear the tiara to breakfast on the days we have no problems — no tantrums, no squealing, no tears — while doing her hair.

Her daughter, who appears to be about 7, has never been subjected to the un-royal indignity of a haircut. Not since birth. Her hair tends to get a bit tangly.

2) Donna Goff: This plus-size Utah resident has launched The Princess Academies, a Mormon organization/cult for “all those who recognize that they are born of royal birth and desire to develop and flower in their potential, as queens in their own homes.” Or to put it another way, crazy Mormon moms and their daughters. The curriculum encompasses both A little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett and “scripture.”

The Academies’ highest calling, it seems, is to sell really boring-sounding books and pamphlets. Its most sacred text, “A Primer for Moms” retails for only $99-$125 and promises to guide fledging princesses through “Activities that Help Build Eloquence” and “Ten Principles of Comeliness.” You can’t achieve principled comeliness, of course, without the knick-knacks Donna sells: “Tiaras are used in the Academies, the mugs and vinyl lettering were designed exclusively by us, for us, to promote healthy princess ideas.” Sample idea: “Princess is as Princess Does.”

Speaking of princess health concerns, I just noticed that the Disney Store website includes the following warning with its description of the aforementioned Disney Princesses alarm clock: This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm.

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Are you a “consensual parent” (a.k.a. an idiot)?
The creepiest perfect babies in the world

What people are saying

  1. OMFG. I was just *certain* that you were being tongue-in-cheek about the cancer warning. Whaaaa?

    Allison
  2. No, it’s real, right there on the Disney site. I couldn’t believe it either.

    dale
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