We celebrated christmas at my parent’s house yesterday. It was a lovely day, but after the presents were opened, I started to feel like I was being held hostage.
I have made no secret about the fact that I believe Disney is Evil. I may have made a fatal flaw when I allowed M to go to Disneyworld with my parents this fall. I gave in because A) I was tired from taking care of two kids, B) I thought she would enjoy it and C) my parents funded the whole shebang.
M had no particular interest in Disney or princesses before the trip. She had a small spike in interest after it, but it seemed to slowly fade back to the previous non-interest level. Yesterday, though, it seems as though the brain sucking marketing machine that is Disney had its way with us, when we weren’t expecting it.
From my parents and other relatives M received:
- A Mickey Mouse/ Disney branded necklace
- A Princesses charm bracelet
- A Cinderella dress up dress
- Princess crown & Jewelry
- Princess jewelry box
- two Disney Christmas tree ornaments
- A princess toy cell phone
She also received a number of other toys, books and clothes, but the sheer volume of Disney crap bothers me the most.
First of all, this is way too many toys for a four year old to receive. Second, they are all completely encrusted with Disney imagery. Third, most if it is cheap CRAP.
I do not want this junk in my house. I do not want the fucked up Disney princess messages to get into my daughters’ heads. I do not want M to alter her normal imaginative play into the yucky dress-up-like-a-princess-and-look-pretty stupidity—and even if she wanted to play that, why does the princess outfit have to have a Disney-branded head on it?
I know that many of you reading this blog probably have no problem with Disney crap. Bully for you. I *DO* have a problem with it. I have a problem with the pervasive marketing that is aimed at younger and younger children. I have a problem with the stupid a-prince-will-save-you message in the Princess movies. I have a problem with the seeming necessity of having a princess’ head as a mascot on every freaking thing they sell.
I thought I had made my wishes about limiting the Disney crap clear when they went to Disneyworld. I told my parents that M could only bring home TWO things as souveniers. They complied. After much thought and deliberation, M chose Mickey Mouse crocs and a pegasus stuffed horse. (Notice that she chose nothing princessy on her own.) Apparently, my family thought Christmas would give them free reign to shower her with all the junk they wanted to give her, but I wouldn’t allow in the house.
I think I will see how long it takes for all the Disney stuff to get “lost”. Maybe when I find these items laying around the house, I will put them away and see how long it takes M to even notice they are gone. If she doesn’t notice, maybe I will just donate them or give them away.
just another reason why i’m glad i don’t have girls.
i’m so glad our kids are getting nice toys this year. and i threw away a bunch of plastic crap yesterday. *aaaaahhhh*
I agree 10,000% with your view of the princess stuff. gah. My mom is the same way- tries to shove the princess thing (and religion thing) down Brooklyn’s throat. I think it’s completely disrespectful since they know how we feel about it.
Bad thing about this is Brooklyn automatically gravitates toward feathery boas, tiaras, etc by herself. god.
My sister in law made my daughters beautiful dress up clothes years ago, so we have always been resistant to the Disney dress up crap. And Pocahontas and Belle were the only princesses they ever liked, so we got off easy.
I hate character crap in general. It’s everywhere shoes, back packs, clothes, toys, all of it. About the only place I’ve ever let them go nuts with it is PJ’s.
We used to have a set of relatives that gave the girls way too much crap. I would hide the bulk of it, and if they girls didn’t mention it for two weeks, off to St. Vincent it went. They never missed it.
Ugh. With you on the D. Princess stuff. I’ve been lucky so far that my daughter hasn’t shown any interest in going to DW or most things related to the princesses. And I’m thankful my parents haven’t offered to take her to DW, they only live 2.5 hours from Orlando!
I knew the Disney Princess craze was getting way out of hand when I saw a DR Pez set for sale at Borders. It was like someone had beheaded Belle, Mulan and friends and ran their heads up on spikes. *shudder* How useless is that? Are you really going to play with the disembodied plastic head of a movie character?
(oops. I meant DP Pez set. You get the picture.)
It’s a conundrum for me. I loathe it because it’s cheap and trinkety and I can’t stand the pervasiveness of the marketing. And frankly, since I didn’t let it into the house, I was puzzled as to how LSP even learned about it. I thought maybe we were home free. I honestly didn’t know how to respond when she walked past a display in a store and said “Mama! We don’t like Disney Princesses, do we?,” as she salivated over the display (likely the torso-less Pez dispenser set described above.). I had this moment of loathing them but also wanting her to feel free to like what she liked, so I told her that if she loved the Princess stuff, we could talk to Santa Claus and see what he would have to say about it, and that if if she really likes something, I will try to like it a little bit too. I think it comes from feeling so stupid as a child when my parents would ridicule things I thought were really cool. For me there ‘s a fine line between inflicting my will on LSP and letting her have a say. That being said, it doesn’t sound at all like M has any real interest in the DP stuff. And for that you are lucky.
Oh, and I loathe the DP stuff for pretty much all the other reasons you mentioned too….
It’s hard. My daughter had some interest, and we didn’t want to make it more alluring because it was forbidden. Once, my husband and daughter were in the Goodwill and there was a big poster of Belle. She asked for it, he was considering, and she yelled, “My dad never lets me get anything girly!” He laughed and got her the poster. And we’ve gotten the occasional other DP thing, but she’s really no that girly, so either we’ve encouraged her well to do other stuff, or she wasn’t going to be that girly anyway.
I agree with Figlet too. My mom was sometimes opposed to stuff I wanted in a way that seemed really mean to me, because I couldn’t understand what she was talking about. It just felt shaming. So, I worry about that too. (I’m sure you are not shaming about it with M. I think your parenting is based on a different model.)
I’m with you on the Disney hatred, for all the reasons you describe. I hate characters in general, but it is on everything.
One thing I ‘ve noticed that kind of pisses me off is that the cheaper clothing, shoes, and sometimes toys is the stuff with character media on it. You have to go to gymboree/baby gap to get just normal clothes. Or haba and oompa loompa to get generic toys. It isn’t impossible to find non media stuff at target, just harder to find and sometimes more expensive.
Exasperating.
We also have quite a few gifts that are slated to get “lost” shortly after Christmas.
My daughter LOVES princesses but she also knows that they aren’t my fave. I try to throw in my 2 cents whenever we talk about the princess stories. I hear her telling her friends my little tidbits like “Snow White should have worn boots if she was going to run in the forest, then she wouldn’t have fallen down” Every princess story has lots of opportunity for you to point out a better way, they’ve actually been a good source of discussion for us.
not a fan either… but somehow they invaded our house. The little one wants to be not a princess but a doctor for princess’. Maybe thats the chinese parental influence compromising with american marketing?
I wonder how one breaks into the royal medical field hmmm?
We don’t permit Barbies, or guns in our house (or allow the boys to participate in the Boy Scouts) and I’ve found direct dicsussion about values works. Even with little ones. “Mama and Daddy think guns only hurt people, and we don’t want you to play with them and we think Barbies give a negative image of women and we don’t want to participate in an organization that formally and officially discriminates.” Even young kids can get good lessons. And then if we ever get such stuff we donate it.
DS-L
I am so with you on this one! It’s crap; the movies, the princesses, the toys, the brainwashing. All crap. Enough said.
I am dreading the first time that I really have to confront my mother in law on this type of stuff, and I know it’s coming. So far my daughter is too young (14 months) to express any appreciation for that crap, and we’ve gotten off scot-free in the clothing department, because we are so loaded down with perfectly good hand-me-downs from friends that we never need clothes, ever.
I don’t mind it being girly, and I have sad memories from childhood of my mother adamantly denying me all things Barbie, and not understanding why. What I mind is the marketing, and the dumbed-down stupidity of those toys. You can’t DO anything with them, and they come with forced plots and too many sound effects.
Just the thought gives me hives. If you can, use the “made in China” excuse. Anything that has a microscopic chance of having lead paint has to go in the garbage. I asked everyone to limit their shopping to shoptadpole.com, oompa.com, etc.
don’t worry too much. It’s more about the message you send her day to day. We are invaded with princess stuff. She likes Mulan best because Mulan climbs and fights like a boy. And where she wears the pinky-frilly dresses, and you listen to her play, more than half the time, SHE’s rescuing the prince! Because at our house, mommy is always the one fixing and doing stuff. I even heard her play the other day and say something like “Prince! you don’t need to call a guy! I can save you!” That’s my girl!
I know it all feels really insidious and disgusting, but you know, no matter how into they are as small children, I can say with certainty that with you as their mom, the Princess message is NOT going to stick. At all.
I was really ant-Barbie. I thought it was going to screw with their body image, messages of beauty, etc etc but they got into Barbies early, like at 3, and by the time they were 6 or 7 they were SO OVER it. And they are now 13 and 17 and they’re not into Princesses OR Barbies or their messages; in fact quite the opposite.
I agree wholeheartedly on the “cheap crap with heads on it” outlook (the marketing machine is scarily effective), but I have to agree with Mortimersmom and Jill: it’s how you teach your child your values that matters most. I like the idea of using the “princess” hang-up to discuss how girls don’t need boys to solve their problems.
Interestingly enough, the latest Barbie movies and the last Cinderella movie all have messages that The Girl Can Get Things Done and she doesn’t need a prince for it at all…
If you don’t want Disney crap in YOUR house, then don’t bring it home. Sweetly suggest that M needs stuff to play with when she visits her grandparents, so you want to leave it there for her to have when she visits.
Easy peasy. But don’t think you’re going to bypass the princess phase. ALL girls pass through it, no matter if you allow Disney into your house or not. I didn’t, because I totally agree with you, but for Purim my daughter wanted to be Queen Ester, not a Disney princess, a Queen and a VERY strong biblical character. But the dress she choose? Pink with shiny silver trim and white fake fur.
We get this problem with our 2 boys, too, but instead it’s gun toys and action man toys (some of them are terrifying!). I think Action Man might be the English name for GI Joe – we were living in England at the time. It was so annoying – my kids’ aunts and uncles all knew we didn’t approve of such things, but still we would get horrible toys like an Action Man in fatigues, holding a machine gun, who lies on his stomach and makes a “commando crawling” action when you press a button. We never took the things away outright – like at your house, they would just dissappear further and further back into the closet, and then poof, disappear altogether. They were hardly missed, and if they were mentioned in passing, I would say, “Oh, yeah, we’ll have to look for that,”and they would promptly be forgotten again.
Boy, do I feel your pain. My weird uncle works at a Disney store and feels the need to buy us ALL (yes, ALL, 40 year old me included) Disney crap, not just at Christmas but year round. And when I say crap I mean crap. I’m appalled at the cheapness and tackiness of the stuff. Plus all the reasons you hate the stuff as well.
Same boat as many others. My mum banned barbie and virtually all TV at home and to this day I remember how much I felt like an outcast sometimes at school. We had no disney stuff at all with Daughter No 1 until she came home upset from preschool that she was always getting it wrong as she didn’t know who wore what colour. So I gave in. We had a month of serious disney but then she only really does it for b’parties. Even at Euro Disney she only wanted the Lion King stuff!
But my bigger worry is BRATZ. I can’t stand them and all they represent. They are so utterly horrible.
100% behind you.
To add to your list of their crimes:
anorexic thinness of all the princesses
presumed heterosexuality
race
race
race
Hmmm. I don’t really care. Pink cheap crap is fine. Violent crap, not fine. I seriously doubt my daughter is going to grow up to be an anorexic princess waiting to be rescued by some prince with me as a mother regardless of what she plays with. Of course, I did just come back from Disney. Maybe they put something in my $2.25 cokes.
I care less now that my kids are almost seven and still haven’t shown any interest in seeing 1/2 of the Disney princess movies, even though I OWN THEM and offered to show them, and even though they all have Disney princess 12″ dolls (including the boy) and a ton of branded Disney stuff, including princess costumes (again, including one dress for the boy). I WAS seriously concerned when they were 4, though, and just getting a bunch of this stuff.
Why didn’t they go seriously nuts? Who knows. Did it do some sort of perverse unspoken damage? Who knows. [I'm not ruling it out, fwiw.] I definitely think it helps that they’ve spent a lot more time reading the original fairy tales, and that reminds me that I promised we’d get right back to The Snow Queen “after I quick checked my e-mail” and that was twenty minutes ago. Oops.
Happy New Year!