Do I have a right to NOT play?

So I am sitting here, aching all over from yesterday's marathon. I just woke up. Haven't had breakfast, just drinking some water and surfing the web a little, waiting for the first pangs of hunger and the motivation to get back off of the couch before I eat something. I have already given my child her breakfast, of course, twice (two bowls of cereal, mixed kinds with milk, and juice...just like she asked for) and she is supposed to now just be playing around me, herself, while I interject words of interest here or there about what she is doing and engage, loosely in it all.

But no, the time of coasting has come to an end. I've had to comment favorably on her puppies that she's taking to the museum. I've had to ride to the museum, that was easy, I just sat on the sofa while she draped some beads on me as a "seatbelt so I can be safe." But now, we've arrived at the museum which means I have to get up and walk...somewhere...that she will pretend is the museum.

The thing is, I just don't want to! I want to just sit here for a few more minutes. I will play with her later, for sure I will. But, damn it, I am tired...and sore. I spent the whole night with her, as I sometimes do, cuddling on the futon on the floor. I know I'm a decent mom. So why do I have to play what she wants when she wants? Fact is, I don't. But she demands it and then cries when I don't. What do I do? It's infuriating. I tell her I'll play later. Not good enough. I tell her to go to her room until she can stop crying and be quiet. So that's what she does, saying to her stuffed dogs, "Sorry puppies" as she continues to cry.

The crying stops after a very short time, though, like less than minutes, maybe 2 minutes? And now I hear her "reading" aloud to her puppies, peacefully and quietly. Maybe now I am ready to play a little or engage, because the sound of her voice reading softly to herself and her pretend puppies is so sweet, and I realize that I've had my five minutes, I am not working or doing anything really important right now, and so why not go to her?

Thoughts on a very long run today

Today was a challenge.

I ran a marathon. My time was slower than I'd hoped. Probably slower than I could have done if I tried harder, now, looking back. But, I am happy. I am glad it's over so now I can just go back to running more normal distances and perhaps just enjoy running more without this big...event...or goal...looming before me.

I did not sleep well the night before the race. The hotel room made all kinds of weird mechanical sounds, as hotel rooms usually do. I am very sensitive to these buzzings, clickings, whooshings. I didn't want to wear earplugs, though, because I didn't want to miss the sound of my alarm. Also, wearing earplugs makes me feel too vulnerable. I'd want to be able to hear and wake up if something was wrong. In addition to that, husband was sniffling loudly, and what seemed to me to be obnoxiously, all. night. long. My kid tossed and turned and proclaimed she didn't love me for quite some time before falling asleep, only to wake up with a coughing fit around 4 am, proclaiming that, yes, she does love me. (This actually warmed my heart and I didn't mind. She is my baby, after all.) Then there was the dog's chains. Since husband was sniffling and stirring, he trusty sidekick was constantly on the alert as well. It was awful.

So, I headed out to do this race and I tried to keep a happy mood, or make a happy mood, this cold, cold morning, heading to the race start, in shorts, alone, in the dark. Standing around in the crowd, waiting for the inexplicably delayed start, a muscle in my back and neck out of nowhere tensed up. I figured, it's a long race, I'll just work through the pain.

I started the race uneventfully and slogged on through. People always pass me in droves at the beginning of these races. People I know I will pass at some point later. I am not the fastest, but I am good at pacing myself. My thing is I never, ever, spend it all. I always save something for the end. I've always got a little left. Today was no different. I seriously contemplated skipping out of this thing at the half-marathon point. I was tired from lack of sleep, feeling down, I just didn't see the point of going through all this. I though about how I could make a legitimate quick answer for people who asked how I did. I'd say, "Eh, I wasn't feeling well, so I decided to just make it a half." Thing is, people don't really do that. I knew I'd feel like a big loser if I did that, and I'd always have "that time I dropped out of the marathon halfway through." So, I told myself I could go as slow as I needed to in order to keep myself from feeling pain and from suffering too much. It's hard to conquer that thought process when you're still in the single digits...mile 7, 8, 9 and you just want to stop at 13. But, once you get to 13, you can tell yourself, "OK, I survived. I just have to do that, again, one time, and I'll be done." And that is just what I did.

I worked through alot of thoughts and emotions during those 26.2 miles today. I had alot of anger. I was angry at my family for keeping me awake. I was angry at my fellow man, my fellow runners in this race for lots of petty little things that didn't matter. They were wearing headphones. The rules explicitly said "NO HEADPHONES." They were senselessly chattering about useless and petty things. One young college-age girl was going on about what the problem with healthcare in America today was. Like she had it all figured out. Some conversations I eavesdropped were interesting, though, and helped keep me going by taking my mind of things for a bit. A woman was working for a medical device company developing some device for blown out knees. Another was a 1st grade teacher in the D.C. public school system. A man told of how he liked to move every 5 or 6 years because life got stale. Faster people passed me. Slower people fell behind me. People who didn't know pacing kept passing and kept later falling behind. And then there were the walkers. They'd walk, then run and catch up, then walk again. And on and on. My view is you don't walk. You run. Even if you run slowly like me. You run.

What I came to realize in this marathon is that I had to run my own race. Today's race. For me. The race I ran today was all about just keeping on as best as I could. I wasn't trying to hit any personal best. I wasn't trying to be a shining star athlete today. No. I was just basically trying to survive. It didn't hurt too much because I just didn't let it. And for me, that was a really fun and gratifying way to run the race today. I enjoyed seeing how slow I could go without being ridiculous, but while not really being in pain or pushing. I never really was winded or breathing hard. It's the bones and muscles of my body that ached. I couldn't help but think, again, just like I did on so many of my training runs, that all this would be easier if I lost a little weight.

I became re-acquainted with the fact that there are many ways to do things. I know this from graphic design and art applications. There are often many ways to accomplish the same goal, different tools to use, different techniques, to do the same thing. Same for running, same for life. For me today, the tools for finishing the race were just to go slow and steady and keep on keepin' on. For someone else, it was different. Today may have been there day to go faster. They may always be faster, or they may someday decide that being fast wasn't what interested them that day. Like me today. I learned that it is much more relaxing and freeing and pleasing to let go of thoughts that dictate something's got to be done a certain way.

One reason I didn't quit at the half was just purely because I had no definite place to go or thing to do. My husband and kid would be out getting bagels or at a playground, waiting to meet me at the end of the marathon, a couple hours later. I thought maybe I could just go back to the hotel room and sleep. But they would be there. I loved them, but I was still annoyed with them. I needed to be alone (albeit in a crowd of runners) for a while longer. I needed to think more. I thought about how I just want to be nice and loving to my family. I thought about how marathons are alot like life. You have good days. You have bad days. There will always be people "better" than you and there will always be people "worse." You just have to know yourself, your pace, what you can do, and sometimes push and sometimes don't, but you have to know yourself enough to know when to do which.

It was really freeing to be able to take the relaxed approach I took to the marathon today. Made me think I could try fighting less and resisting less in day to day life, as well, especially dealings with my preschooler, and to some extent my husband and the whole world.

Soooo NOT awkward, and more on playdates

Well, I survived the pool playdate and let me tell you, it was not awkward at all. First of all, there were lots of little kids and moms at the pool. I will say very few moms were actually in the pool. Most sat on the sidelines fully dressed. I think many of them had kids in an actual swimming class. As for us, well, we just chatted and the conversation totally flowed. The girls splashed around, we interacted with them, but did a fair share of talking amongst ourselves, actually. It was good to be in the water and have my body shielded a little that way, hee hee. I can't believe I was ever so weirded out by the idea. Not that I am in a hurry to do it again. I like swimming laps and going to the beach, but I am not that big on just hanging out in a pool, especially an indoor pool.

Of course, I told my husband about our day, and he said, "Oh, who's idea was that?" I told him it was the dad's idea, but quickly reminded my husband of our many trips to nude beaches, our honeymoon stint at a nude town in France, and his general propensity toward licentiousness, and he left it alone. Still, I can see how he'd be a little "bleh" about having to go to work in an office all day while I was at a pool socializing with Mr. Mom. At the end of the day, though, he didn't care much one way or the other.

I have to say, I kind of enjoy socializing with this dad more than I have with most moms as far as parents of kids my kid has done playdates with. Nothing bad about the moms, but you know, in my 20s, most of my friends were guys. I think it's just that lots of time guys are more easygoing, the talk seemed to flow very quickly beyond parenting and kids to our participation in sports, to world events, and more. But of course, this is just a very small sample size and just one and a half interactions.

My kid had a playdate with this guy's kid once before where she came over to our house to play and I gotta say, that was the best of all because I didn't have to talk to even him for very long. My kid had specifically asked me to invite this other child over and so I made the gestures. I found out her mom was being deployed to Afghanistan and the dad was going to be the primary with the kids for a while, so I'd have to deal with him. I told him, when making the invitation for the playdate that he would be welcome to just drop his kid off and let her play here while he went and ran errands or did whatever he wanted, if he didn't feel like sitting around coffee klatching with a mom (me). I said, maybe he'd hang out for a while, get a feel for our home, make sure it was safe for his kid, she was comfortable here and all that, then go on his way if he felt comfortable with it. And that's just what happened. And those are the playdates I prefer. My kid has a friend over, they play, I work, read, hang out and supervise from afar, minimally, rather than having to make conversation with a parent I may or may not have much in common with for hours.

Of course, I have my own friends and some happen to be parents, so it's not that I don't want to hang out at all, it's just cool that when kids start getting older they can have their own friends and their own playdates and we're moving away from the "mommies club" kind of thing.

AWKward!?

It's about an hour before we're due for a swim playdate. I'm not entirely looking forward to it. OK, I wish I didn't have to do it. It's early March and I know it's an indoor, heated pool, but I also know I am probably going to be cold. I like swimming laps, but I don't really like just hanging around in the water, indoors, at the county rec center pool. So, why did I agree to this playdate? I wanted to be a good egg. I wanted to say "yes" to someone. This someone, though, is a dad, so on top of being cold and wet, I am going to be worried about what I look like in a bathing suit.

I'm not fat. I'm training for a marathon. I lift weights regularly. I look fine. Not bikini model material, but a healthy, athletic almost-40-year-old woman. So, why do I feel like this is going to be awkward? Maybe I'd feel less awkward if I was straight-up overweight, with no potential for attraction? Why did I not mention it to my husband? Why do I feel guilty and weird? I am not a prude at all. I am not attracted to this man—at all. And yet, I feel weird. A little. I am guessing my hairy legs and underarms will put him off enough to not see me that way.

I feel like if this were outside at the neighborhood pool it would be less awkward. It would be summer time. There would be other moms, dads and kids around. But, here, still in winter at the rec center, it's likely it might just be me and him and our girls. Maybe not. We'll see. Although he did say when suggesting this playdate that it will be nice for his kid to have someone else to play with since it's usually just her.

So, will we be sitting there having a conversation, in our swimsuits, under the cold, grey lights of this indoor pool while they girls play? (They are too little, at 3, to be in the water themselves, with us on the sidelines, I'd say). Or, will the girls occupy enough of the time and activity that we won't have to interact that much?

I was up late reading last night and sort of couldn't go to bed because I was wondering about all these things. Again, why did I just go along with this playdate idea, even though I thought maybe it was a little odd? I wanted to be easygoing. Go along with it. It would be weird for me to feel funny about being in a bathing suit and having to talk to some man. I shouldn't feel funny, should I? I shouldn't wonder about what he thinks of me in a swimsuit. That is vain and weird, and of course not what what this is all about. Part of me didn't mention it to my husband because I don't know if he would think it is weirder for me to do the playdate or weirder that I would have all this ambivalence about it. I know I can't coach my daughter to not talk about it, or lie, that would be going too far. But still, I hope we do enough other things after that she doesn't mention it. She probably will, though.

I'll report back post-pool playdate and let you know what happens.

I walk the line: the challenges of being progressive but with ‘old-fashioned’ values

I signed the Planned Parenthood online petition this past week, both times, once before the House passed their measure to cut its funding and the other, after, when PP was looking to let the Senate know they should not cut funding. I saw alot of different discussions about this and other related issues online, and knew which side I was on for the most part in these discussions.

The MoveOn.org link, too, was valuable, in outlining several the “Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP’s War on Women,” although I am sure they (the Republicans) don’t see it as such and I honestly really don’t understand the Republican motive behind all this. Do they think they can shame people into what they feel is appropriate behavior? Do they think women go out looking to land in a spot where they need an abortion? Most of the things on the 10-point list are obvious, no-brainers that any progressive can get behind opposing.

But, I would feel a little disingenuous if I did not say something about what what I really think of point 6 on MoveOn’s list:

6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids’ preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really be home with the kids, not out working. {emphasis theirs}

Let me just first say that at the end of the day, I still support what MoveOn is driving at—that is, not pulling funding from low-income kids’ preschool programs. I get that. They’re low income. Further, I think that by simply raising taxes on the rich (I, too, though not “rich” would be willing to pay more) and then people just being a little more efficient and earnest in how they manage these funds, many of the budget problems would likely be solved, or at least it would help.

My problem, though, is the way MoveOn phrases it, as though it is a preposterously wrong idea that “Women should really be home with the kids, not out working”—wrong on the same level of Republicans allowing women to die rather than allow them an abortion, or on the level of changing the legal definition of rape, or on the level of making it legal to kill abortion providers.

I just don’t think the idea that mothers of small children should be home with their kids is really so wrong. It is idealistic, to be sure, in today’s world, but, it is not wrong. In fact, I think it is very much right. I think more people who can actually afford it should do this. I’m not saying women should not work, ever, I’m just saying that I really do believe it is better, most especially for infants, for them to be at home with their mothers and to slowly ramp the children up for full days at school over the 5-6 year early childhood stage. I do not think it is ideal for infants to be in day care centers or for toddlers or preschoolers to attend all day programs. I’ll provide a link here to some more thoughts on this including scholarly citations on the subject, though, as is the case with “proving” breastfeeding is the right thing to do, I do dare say that it seems to me to be common sense that small children, new to the world, need not be exposed to the fray of a group dynamic under the care of paid workers for extended periods of time. But, I digress.

To paraphrase a great thinker (cough cough…not really…but the sentiment works in what I am getting at there) we have to deal with the world we live in NOW not the world we want, or how we hope the world will someday be. Sure, I want a world where all mothers can afford to stay home with their infants, then send them to preschool for a few hours a week at age 3 or so, then enroll them in Kindergarten and be there at 3 pm to ask how their day was. However, I am a realist and I understand that that is NOT the world we live in right now. Therefore, we need to try and help out the best we can, which might mean, yes, funding full day preschools for low income kids. It also might mean subsidizing low income mothers staying home with their infants or preschoolers, or maybe attending classes part time, if they hit a set of targets ensuring they’re doing right by the kids and the system and not squandering the benefit.

I also understand that even among those who have a little money, with good jobs, mothers often choose to work because of a need for the healthcare benefits associated with their jobs. Another common scenario are the professionals who have to both work because their student loan payments are so high. Fixing both of these issues by bringing America more in line with other industrialized countries that do not tie healthcare to employment and that have much more reasonable systems of higher education would definitely allow more parents to do better by their young children.

I guess I am just dismayed that the progressives, with whom I share many values, think that what I believe to be ideal for children is wrong or somehow laughable or outrageous. But, the alternative—not supporting Planned Parenthood or MoveOn and allowing the attacks on women and children the Republicans are trying to pull—isn’t really an option for me either.

No regrets: Why I won’t hedge my child’s psyche to safeguard my future comfort

The latest buzz on the interwebs ingniting the fizzling “Mommy Wars” with a new spark comes from journalist Katy Read who regrets “opting out” of her career years ago to raise her sons, now that she’s divorced and can’t find much good work. In her Salon piece, not only does she tell her woeful tale, she warns new mothers against making the same mistake she did. “So if some young woman with a new baby were to ask me about opting out…I would warn her not to do it,” she concludes. She’s honest, she does mention the mixed feelings, the good times with her young boys, but in the end, it’s not worth it.

Many voices analyzed the piece, most echoing its sentiments. Two Babble bloggers discussed the piece, one a SAHM, the other a former SAHM, both clearly in the cautious camp. Some rightly hone in more on the divorce angle. And a dad blogger gives what I think is a smarter perspective. Right now, we’re in a recession. It’s just as easy to stay at work after having a baby, so better safe than sorry, right? I guess hindsight is 20/20 and one “never knows.” Feminists generally emphasize women’s need to be financially independent in case their husbands divorce them and act like its a fool’s game to stay home with small children for a few years because of the hit a career could take.

I say, one should live their ideal life, prudently, of course, if they are able and should not settle for less in order to hedge their bets against an unforeseeable future—certainly not when it comes to the well being of one’s children. Sure, there is no argument against the reality of the numbers that if you’re at home with kids and not working for money, or if you are working part time for less money, that you are going to take a financial hit. I am contributing less to my retirement fund, yes. Do I care? No. Am I unique in my confidence that my husband won’t leave me? I don’t know. I just know that’s not how I life my life. I believe in prudence, of course, which perhaps has given me the luxury of having the choice to stay home and run a low-key business for a few years while my child is young. We saved, we don’t spend wildly now, we have simple tastes, and of course we are blessed that my husband has a stable, well-paying job. I understand that other people have different circumstances and I’ve learned (mostly) not to judge. I do have a problem with the advice to young mothers from this person who has experienced the bad-end failure to do something different based on her individual circumstances.

I tend to believe that if you hedge against staying with your husband forever, that very act of hedging alone chips away at the commitment and bond. If you have the “just in case” idea poison the purity of your vow, then, there’s a crack in the foundation. This is why its so important to choose your partner well. If you work because you want to work, you’re embracing life and living it. If you work because you’re thinking maybe your husband will leave you, that’s not feminist. That’s presupposing the standard is that you’re supposed to be “taken care of” and you don’t trust that you’ll get that. If you approach marriage as a partnership between equals, the choice to stay home and raise your children (who are your husband’s children, too) is you doing that part of the partnership that you and your partner together decided was a good way to run your family. The bond has to be there and I don’t think it’s healthy for the bond to make contingency plans. (This is very different from life or disability insurance, to me.) Its recognizing that raising your children is as important as paying the bills (at least!).

The real problem here is divorce, I think. I strongly believe that if a couple has children they should really, really make the most valiant of efforts not to divorce. I don’t believe that a full half of people in marriages commit such heinous crimes that divorce is warranted. People. Work it out. You’re not that hot on the market. You need to find your happiness in your own soul, not chasing the next great thing you hope will come along, not cutting the dead weight you think is your spouse. Get it together for your kids, seriously! Men who leave women with kids in bad situations are reprehensible. Women that leave men over small things and then moan that it’s such a struggle to raise kids on their own, I don’t wanna hear it!

I believe it is best for infants and small children (preschoolers) to be cared for at home by their own mother. Yes, I know about tribal cultures and villages where many cared for the babies and youth of the tribe. The children were passed around, everybody had a hand in it and played their role very fluidly. I respect and admire those cultures, and such an arrangement may well be good for children, but that’s not the reality of the culture we live in today in the West and using daycare is in no way even a close approximation of that way of life. (It’s a common line quoted to defend daycare…”it takes a village!”) You can believe what you want about early childhood. But, given what I believe, and given that I have the means to do it, I feel absolutely compelled to stay home til my child is in school (we’ll see what the next transition will bring in a couple of years) and no fear of my future earning potential could waiver my resolve or make me regret my choice.

I scrabbled a life together for myself for many years when I was young, before getting a degree, before getting married, and I have confidence in myself that I could do it again. I hold raising my daughter as the most important job I can do. These two sentences, to me, encapsulate more of what feminism should be than the weakness and fear the one won’t be good enough later and that one doesn’t matter in their child’s early years.

In defense of the Disney Princess (sort of)

It’s a common theme in fairytales and fantasy that if you believe in something strongly enough, it can happen; conversely if you don’t believe in, or give power to, an “evil,” you will be unharmed. These concepts probably aren’t very useful in many real-world situations of oppression where countries are run by militant warlords, women are routinely raped, there is no rule of law, and people are generally depraved. However, in the West, when dealing with matters of cultural and consumer warfare, I think the “not believing in” strategy can go a long way toward “protecting” ourselves against things we deem detrimental.

Consider the Disney Princesses.

Much has been made of the evil of Disney Princesses in contemporary feminist discussion. One blogger notes, “Arguably one of the toughest things about being a woman today is living in the shadow of all these fictional women we have been brought up to idolize.” Another speaks of Disney’s far reach “This is what little girls all over the world are watching.” And the well-known, scholarly Barbara Ehrenreich spoke out against the princesses back in 2007. Most recently, a mom and educator said in a guest blog on a “feminist” website (tongue-in-cheek, but with real complaints to back it up) that “Disney Princesses should come with warning labels.“

Now we don’t really do Disney in our house. Not in this way. We have some things that happen to be Disney. I know they took over Pooh. We have some old books with Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse and the crew that we bought at the thrift store. But we don’t have princess stuff. It’s not so much that I would be troubled by the messaging because I honestly think that all the subtext feminists are reading into it is beyond most three year olds (the age of my girl) and if they are attracted to princess stuff its because they really just might like pretty things. I don’t have princess stuff in my house or watch the movies because I don’t care for the aesthetic and I think the stories are boring and stupid. I wouldn’t mind so much the aesthetic of the old-school Snow White, but I think watching a full-length movie is too much screen time at once, uninterrupted, for a three-year old anyway. Other Disney movies I like: Bambi, Dumbo, Fantasia. To me, it’s about aesthetics. I don’t like the way people or anything else really looks in the new digitally-animated, hyper-stylized Disney animation. But, I’ve digressed.

What bothers me most is the assumed power this media has over children. Last time I checked, I controlled what my 3-year-old consumed—both in terms of food and media. And, shouldn’t this be so for all parents? Both the highly-educated, high-minded Barbara Ehrenreich and the local, home-grown person I’ve never heard of on The Feminist Breeder (TFB) blog act like they can’t exert any control over their preschool children.

“In faithful imitation, the 3-year-old in my life flounces around with her tiara askew and her Princess gown sliding off her shoulder, looking for all the world like a London socialite after a hard night of cocaine and booze… it may be old-fashioned to say so, but sex–and especially some middle-aged man’s twisted version thereof–doesn’t belong in the pre-K playroom.” Ehrenreich says.

The other blogger write of how she sends her boyfriend (not the child’s father) to get a gift for the child and he goes to the Disney store. (Two big “whys” in that sentence right there…) He gets the “wrong” toy and when she takes her little darling back to exchange it she “begrudgingly paid the $2.50 to the Disney Store clerk to ‘upgrade’ my daughter’s gift from the rejected Sally plush to the Belle plush…” and she then realizes she “will probably never win the battle of Jill vs. the Disney Princesses.”

Ehrenreich surrenders, too, saying “Let’s face it, no parent can stand up against this alone…”

And truly, both the Ehrenreich piece and TFB piece are semi-satirical, but the underlying notion that we, as mothers, can’t control what our preschool children watch and do, at so young an age, is hugely problematic to me. It should be no surprise, I suppose, when so many preschool children spend their days in the care of someone other than their own mothers and have been in such a situation since infancy. Still, the women writing these articles are themselves smart and educated and vocal. If they can’t exert control, I mean, who can? What’s the problem? Is it laziness? Is it wanting to pass the buck to “society”…a “big corporation” like Disney? Is it just so they can have something “interesting” to complain about within the notions of what “feminism” should be?

I don’t know. But my experience shows different results and while I think some of it is attributable to my girl’s individual personality, some of it is attributable to my influence, as well. I myself am pretty “tomboyish.” I’m athletic. My girl is well aware of me going running. She knows this is one of the things I do when she is in preschool. She knows this is what I do on Saturday morning when she and Daddy go grocery shopping and play. I don’t wear (much) makeup or none unless I’m going somewhere beyond preschool drop-off or the grocery store. I don’t speak frivolously or act frivolously or put undue emphasis on things being “pretty” or “not pretty.” This isn’t really because I make a conscious effort here, it’s just how I am. I speak loudly and firmly to my husband when the situation requires it. I sweat, I dig in the dirt, I lift heavy things. My daughter sees all this and this is how women are to her, right now because to her, I am the archetypal woman.

And this is the key. A mother has to be her daughter’s strongest influence. Certainly at age 3! Hopefully much longer than that, although I do realize that it is healthy to be influenced by other people and things as they get older. I think far too little weight is given to appropriate bonding with children. This isn’t just making sure they are well-fed and feel loved. Bonding is about planting the seeds in a family that they belong to you, you belong to them, there are certain ways our family is, that is us. Very hard to do (though not entirely impossible) when a child spends most of their waking hours being cared for by someone else the first three or four years of their lives when they are so very impressionable.

My daughter is very attached to me, having had me as her primary companion and caregiver these few short years she’s been here. I nursed her for about 33 months. We co-slept and still do a kind of semi-co-sleeping arrangement now, as well, that is agreeable to all family members. She does get out into the world for playdates and preschool, although I did not leave her with anyone til she was 2 and a half. At preschool (3 half-days a week) she is exposed to other girls, girly-girls who do princessy things. My daughter does like to be pretty and recognizes things she likes and doesn’t like in terms of styles and colors, but she’s not obsessed about it or into any deep story lines.

At a get-together of some families of my daughter’s preschool class, we parents were talking about our girls. Many of the moms were going on about how their daughters were into the whole princess playing thing. One said that the girl talks of how she will get married someday and calls this certain boy she knows her “prince charming.” I smiled politely but inside this made me gag. Not even so much because of feminist reasons, but because it is so boring, predictable and dead-end in terms of imaginative play. And because these girls are ONLY three. I was so pleased that my daughter was over in another corner playing Play Doh with the only boy at the get together (someone’s 5 year-old sibling) while the little girls were doing their princess thing. Not that there’s anything “wrong” with it, my girl’s just not interested.

Does Disney really try to push these princess characters as role models and if so, are you buying? I can’t say whether they do because I am just not all that well-versed in them, but my sense is that they are just pretty, shiny things meant to sell toys and movie tickets. There is not any “agenda” behind them other than selling stuff (a whole other post). That said, isn’t it up to the adults in the house to use their “power of the purse” then and not buy things that don’t echo their family’s values, if, in fact, they find these princesses so very offensive? I mean put “crack cocaine” in place of the Disney princesses. Wouldn’t you think someone a little crazy if they said “But my girl loves crack cocaine and all her little friends are into it…its everywhere…there’s nothing I can do…”

Now, I’m not the one equating Disney with crack, but some feminists act like it’s pretty damn bad. Let’s go back to the one who said “Arguably one of the toughest things about being a woman today is living in the shadow of all these fictional women we have been brought up to idolize.” Really? That is the hardest thing about being a woman today? Not the fact that across the globe women and children are being trafficked? Not even that the economic climate of today dictates that many women feel they have to place their infants in daycare so they can feed and protect their families, while giving up the bonding and influence they know deep inside is so important? Not a pay gap? Not figuring out how to breastfeed while working full time away from your baby? And who has brought us up to idolize these fictional women? Our mothers? Not my mom. She stayed home and took care of me when I was very small and was a strong influence in my life.

I think real feminism and real strength is manifested in actually being there for our daughters, actually exerting the control over what they consume, especially at so young and age, and shaping how they view themselves in the world—not just throwing your hands up and acting like you can’t help things. Is that powerful? Nobody is taking your power in this area, moms, you seem to be giving it up freely. Now lots of commenters and the blogger on TFB do talk about how they are going to turn dangerous princess exposures into “teachable moments” and I agree that’s good and important. But I have to question why 2 and 3 year olds are watching feature-length films to begin with and why instead, if you must give them media you don’t give them something else at this point in their lives? That’s a personal decision, of course, just don’t act powerless and call yourself a feminist…and expect my respect.

Just believe in yourself as a mother and don’t give Disney or its evil princesses the power you don’t want them to have and be your daughter’s heroine.