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Home Front: Culture Wars
WhatÂ’s Wrong With Cinderella?
2006-12-24
Now this is some funny shit. Looooong NYT Mag article about a Femi-Mummykins in the midst of a Dowd-ish Life Crisis as she tries to figure out how to steer her 3 yr old daughter through the marketing minefield of girlie girl fantasies, torn, conflicted, or Royally pissed off at almost every turn... All the while, the kid is cool. Magically cool. Major cool. In fact, the kid's frickin' awesome. The kid "gets it". She's gonna rock. Enjoy. Lol.
By PEGGY ORENSTEIN - December 24, 2006 - I finally came unhinged in the dentist’s office — one of those ritzy pediatric practices tricked out with comic books, DVDs and arcade games — where I’d taken my 3-year-old daughter for her first exam. Until then, I’d held my tongue. I’d smiled politely every time the supermarket-checkout clerk greeted her with “Hi, Princess”; ignored the waitress at our local breakfast joint who called the funny-face pancakes she ordered her “princess meal”; made no comment when the lady at Longs Drugs said, “I bet I know your favorite color” and handed her a pink balloon rather than letting her choose for herself. Maybe it was the dentist’s Betty Boop inflection that got to me, but when she pointed to the exam chair and said, “Would you like to sit in my special princess throne so I can sparkle your teeth?” I lost it.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I snapped. “Do you have a princess drill, too?”

She stared at me as if I were an evil stepmother.
Posted by:.com

#21  I was Princess Leia for Halloween. I was a ballerina and a Lady Di junkie. I had an easy-bake oven, the Barbie dream house, and everything covered in lavender frills. I had a lavish Easter wedding for Pooh Bear and Miss Piggy.

But thanks to dad, I could also hit a mean line drive, learned basic carpentry, and cleaned his friends' clocks at poker. I understand football, learned algebra by age 8, and can still out-burp a truck driver.

I attribute a portion of your eventual success to gun ownership. So there!
Posted by: Zenster   2006-12-24 21:40  

#20  Well, Barbara, dear old dad fucked me and mom well and good in the end. I'm grateful for my childhood, but if I'd known what was in store, I think I'd rather have taken the hit as a child.

Having to teach yourself things a dad should have can't have been easy. But neither is finding yourself early in your career, with piles of student debt, having to clean up the mess when dad absconds with the bank accounts, property titles, and some chick, leaving your disabled mother and elderly grandmother to fend for themselves.

I think would've done okay without the burping lessons.
Posted by: exJAG   2006-12-24 21:17  

#19  columnist is also an author,


------------------------
Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self Esteem, and the Confidence Gap (Paperback)1995
by Peggy Orenstein "Weston, California, sits at the far reaches of the San Francisco Bay
Posted by: mhw   2006-12-24 20:58  

#18  In Whiskettes4Hilali's #4 you'll find the link to the author's website. Daddy is a "filmmaker", according to her bio. They're "special, shiny people".
Posted by: .com   2006-12-24 20:31  

#17  #15 exJAG: "Where the hell is dad?"

Dad? These women femidiots don't need a man to raise a child - just ask 'em.

I grew up without a Dad - and I can tell you my growing years and my adult life would have been a hell of a lot better/easier if I'd had one. As it was, I had to spend far too much of my adult life teaching myself the things a Dad could have taught me.

Your family did it right.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2006-12-24 20:27  

#16  exJAG sounds like my kind a woman!
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2006-12-24 20:19  

#15  Jebus, this woman is a basket case. Where the hell is dad?

I was Princess Leia for Halloween. I was a ballerina and a Lady Di junkie. I had an easy-bake oven, the Barbie dream house, and everything covered in lavender frills. I had a lavish Easter wedding for Pooh Bear and Miss Piggy.

But thanks to dad, I could also hit a mean line drive, learned basic carpentry, and cleaned his friends' clocks at poker. I understand football, learned algebra by age 8, and can still out-burp a truck driver.

A balanced upbringing serves any child well. I sure do feel sorry for that kid.
Posted by: exJAG   2006-12-24 20:12  

#14  You're scarin' me, Frank...
Posted by: Dave D.   2006-12-24 15:55  

#13  :-)
Posted by: Frank G   2006-12-24 15:46  

#12  We understand that it's strictly a comfort issue for you, Frank.
Posted by: Zenster   2006-12-24 15:31  

#11  sometimes, when I dress up all pretty at home..I feel like a princess. Not that there's anything wrong with that
Posted by: Frank G   2006-12-24 15:21  

#10  The princess stage. We inherited ours from the older girl cousins, complete, with the Barbie additions from my mother-in-law, so I didn't have to do much. The trailing daughters started at two years old, had moved on by six. What I recall most vividly is that while the girls enjoyed it, and Halloween costumes were homemade Butterfly Princess (leotard, tulle skirt, wings and a crown), Ballerina Princess (leotard, tulle tutu, ballet slippers and a crown), etc, the theme was really pushed by mommies and aunts and grandmas giving all the things they'd most dreadfully desired at that stage... and hadn't gotten themselves. It was so easy: get the girl a little pink princess thingy, get the boy Matchbox cars or a Star Wars sword. But the kids took that stuff, then went to play trains all together, or wild animals in the jungle.

And the same mommies who fretted that their girls insisted on dressing all in pink were the ones who bought them nothing else. Just as this preciously concerned mommy uses the princess thingy to get her daughter to keep her underpants dry and not cry.
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-12-24 14:21  

#9  A whiff of reverse racism, even?

Not, just racism. No, she doesn't chaw terbakky and drive a pickup so she can fit her racists view of anti-black racists but she f*cking well should be...
Posted by: badanov   2006-12-24 14:13  

#8  What a tedious mess.

Lileks does it far better, and in four paragraphs.
Posted by: KBK   2006-12-24 13:55  

#7  I am SO there!
Posted by: Princess Buttercup   2006-12-24 11:20  

#6  "Peggy's Palace"

Oh. My. God.

Show me a leftist who isn't a psychological mess.
Posted by: no mo uro   2006-12-24 10:45  

#5  Well said, .com!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2006-12-24 10:43  

#4  Â“Oh, for GodÂ’s sake,” I snapped. “Do you have a princess drill, too?”

How about a "Peggy's Palace" web page, complete with guards in Busbies?

I had time on my hands, and Google was waiting...
Posted by: Whiskettes4Hilali   2006-12-24 08:26  

#3  From the movie Little Princess

Sara Crewe: I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren't pretty, or smart, or young. They're still princesses. All of us. Didn't your father ever tell you that? Didn't he?

[Apparently Peggy's father didn't. He was probably correct in this instance.]


Sara Crewe: Well, not just me, all girls are princesses. Even snotty, two-face bullies like you, [ed: Peggy] Lavinia!
Posted by: Uniter Angomonter3858   2006-12-24 08:24  

#2  "The kid is, well, the kid. She is herself, not some extension of Femi-Mummykins."

You nailed it,.com.

This is something I see all the time, moms with one kid only who treat the child as if it's a fifth limb and actually part of their body.

They refer to the kid as "mybaby". Not "my baby" (two words) but "mybaby", and what they mean is "me". For all of their lip service to individualism, these new-age femi-mommies see parenthood as a process by which they will mold the kid into an exact (immortal, they believe) duplicate of themselves without having to go through all the horrible trauma of dealing with the patriarchy, or something to that effect.

Yeah, there's a few dads who do this with their kids and sports, but nothing like the scale I see with the femi-moms and this type of angst.

Good post, and good comments, .com. I thought I was the only one noticing this crap!
Posted by: no mo uro   2006-12-24 08:13  

#1  Almost 5,000 words devoted to militant liberal political correctness and womanly angst. Gimme a break!

“Her face is all right,” I said, noncommittally, though I’m not thrilled to have my Japanese-Jewish child in thrall to those Aryan features.

A whiff of reverse racism, even?
Posted by: Zenster   2006-12-24 06:30  

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