Dispatch From the Front Line of the “You Are Not a Princess” Wars

On Wednesday, the Huffington Post published this story about a “pro-women” advertising campaign from a Kentucky-based all-girls prep school. Mercy Academy’s “You Are Not a Princess” campaign, which AdWeek featured earlier this week, challenges the young ladies of the world to “be more than just the fairest of them all” and warns them: “don’t wait for a prince” and “life’s not a fairytale.” This is the latest blow struck in the princess wars, which I have been fighting in my own home.

If you ask my 6-year-old daughter what she wants to be when she grows up, she will reply, with pure glee in her eyes, “a princess.” This is nothing new. She’s been saying this consistently for the last three years, and it drives my wife and me out-of-our-minds crazy. We explain to her that “a princess” is not a career. We tell her that you can’t just “be” a princess. I say, “But you can be anything that you want to be.” And she replies, “Yes, Daddy, I know. That’s why I want to be a princess!”

Sigh.

I’m not exactly sure where this princess obsession comes from. My daughter has seen a few Disney princess movies over the years, sure. But thanks to having a brother in the house, who is one year older, the television viewing tends to be a bit more unisex. He wants to watch Star Wars. She wants to watch Tinker Bell: Secret of the Wings. We settle on The Lorax and The Croods.

She wants all of her birthday parties to be princess parties, or at least some variation on a princess party (I think her request for Year 7 is “a princess luau birthday party”). And hey, it’s her birthday. What are we supposed to do? This year, we gave her the requested princess party, but I wrote a song called “More Than a Princess” (you can watch it below, though I warn you that I can play the piano much better than I can sing) as a feeble effort to combat her princess obsession. I’m sure she’ll be very embarrassed by it when we show it at her princess wedding:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5qQLKJXjN4

When it comes to books, we are big borrowers from the local library, where the kids can pick out some of their own books and we choose some for them as well. Most recently, we picked up a copy of Girls Who Rocked the World: Heroines from Joan of Arc to Mother Teresa.

From it, I read my daughter the intriguing tale of Sacagawea. She couldn’t have been less interested. But the crappy little princess book that she picked up at a yard sale for a dime in 2011 and that literally concludes with “…and they lived happily ever after,” a few pages after the princess marries her prince? Oh, that book she will read. Over. And. Over. Again. Am I supposed to throw it away, as if it’s a copy of Hustler found in a 14-year-old boy’s room?

We bought her the “girl” Legos (after she showed zero interest in the standard set), but she doesn’t play with them. And now my son builds giant pink Lego towers and then shoots them to smithereens with his X-Wing Fighter as my daughter plays princess with her dolls in the background.

The Princess Wars are in full force these days. The Christian Science Monitor ran a story asking if the “Disney Princess divide” would be the “next mommy wars.” And earler this year, this graphic made the viral rounds on the Internet:

Great advice. Though maybe we’re making too much of a fuss about this princess stuff. Maybe lots of smart, powerful, successful women of today wanted to be princesses when they grew up. My daughter is bright and kind. She has a wickedly offbeat sense of humor. She’s better at math and spelling than her older brother, who is, himself, smart as a whip. She’ll be fine.

So, what do you think? Are we anti-princess parents overreacting? Should we let our daughters be? Is this just a phase, or are the Princess Wars worth fighting?

…

More Than a Princess
By Victor Fiorillo

Cinderella is just a story
Rapunzel’s make believe
But you are real
And so much more than a princess.

You’re strong, you’re kind, you’re curious
creative and so smart
Rapunzel may have magic hair
but you were perfect
perfect from the start.

Ariel was the Little Mermaid
and Belle she had her Beast
but you’re the best
and so much more than a princess.

You’re strong, you’re kind, you’re curious
creative and so smart,
Belle may have the prettiest gowns
but you’ve been perfect
perfect from the start.

Jasmine was in Aladdin
Tiana had the Prince and the Frog
but you’re a real girl
and so much more than a princess.

You’re strong, you’re kind, you’re curious
creative and so smart.
You didn’t need Walt Disney’s help
you were perfect
perfect from the start.

Follow @VictorFiorillo on Twitter.