My young daughter loathes princesses with a passion. While her friends’ rooms are bedecked in pink princess paraphernalia, my preschooler has chosen to decorate her space with a decidedly more daring dinosaur and dog motif.
Which is not to say that I didn’t encourage her to embrace all things pink.
When friends and family found out that I had given birth to a baby girl, pinky princess products arrived by the boxfuls. Bottles, bibs, blankets, crib sheets, onesies, pillows—-all sporting different shades of pink and baring words, such as “Her Highness,” “I am the Princess,” “Lil’ Princess,” or “It’s Not Easy Being a Princess”—-were presented to my precious little bundle of joy.
Apparently, there’s a huge market for princess apparel, and is there any wonder why? Obviously, when a person gives birth to a female, pretty pink girly-girl gifts come with the territory.
Seems harmless enough, right?
Not according to is Jean Twenge. The associate professor of psychology at San Diego State and co-author of “The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement,” is on an anti-princess crusade. In her book, she maintains that the current princess obsession that so many little girls – and their parents – have bought into can morph into major problems down the road.
Twenge says she found that while college-age females display fewer narcissistic traits than their male counterparts, it’s only a matter of time before the girls catch up… and the princess phenomenon is to blame.
“It just encourages parents who put their kids on a pedestal – and who encourage their kids a lot and rarely criticize,” Twenage writes. “You could label that kind of parenting ‘princess parenting.'”
I’m not sure I completely agree with Twenage’s take on the whole princess obsession and its negative impact on young girls. Obviously, if you have a responsible parent taking charge of the situation, a few sparkly plastic shoes and glittery tiaras, won’t turn your little girl into a royal pain.
After all, my daughter has several sequined skirts, bejeweled tiaras and shiny shoes, but she only dons them a few times a year—-when she’s making like her favorite hoofers on “Dancing with the Stars.”
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