I rail a lot about the insidiousness of the Disney Princess empire. Despite having no Princess toys at home (beyond that disembodied head of Ariel, which is at the bottom of the toy box and hasn't been looked at in quite awhile), my child knows all the Princesses, and their consorts, and what color eyes, hair and dress each has. She hasn't asked me for a Princess doll, but many of the girls in her daycare class have them, and bring them in for naptime. ("Home" toys are not allowed, except for nap.)I was pleasantly surprised when a friend of mine gave her a Groovy Girl doll for Christmas - I'd never seen one before, but it's just a doll. No breasts, no attitude, not plastic. A winsome expression on her face, and a mop of curly yarn hair. She adopted it right away and carries it everywhere. So what happened when she returned to daycare after a 10 day break? The Groovy Girl has been dubbed a Princess.
She also, like Javelin's Z., got a pirate ship for Christmas. Over the weekend, we let it and its many little bits out of the box and Daddy helped her set it up. The ship came with two pirates. She gleefully announced "I'm Jack Sparrow, and you can be Will Turner!"So, her Groovy Girl has become a princess, but she can pretend to be a male pirate.
It's a conundrum of being.
That's great! Very cool that your daughter has a pirate ship.
ReplyDeleteI'm stuck in boy toy land here...
That doll is fantastic.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a girl, but I think that I too would avoid the princess empire like the plague.
ReplyDeleteI love the groovy girl! And pirate are awesome, what girl wouldn't love 'em!
Cuodos to you for avoiding the cliched mainstream.
My very gentle animal loving youngest son, likes to play bionicles, most of whom are creatures so disgustingly violent, you would never believe it's legal for kids under 18.
ReplyDeleteI stopped objecting when I realized he was taking care of the bionicles and feeding them and playing doll, in effect. But, I'm never ever allowed to mention that. Offends his manhood.
It's what a well-rounded girl should be allowed to be, right? Anything she wants!
ReplyDeleteWe have things both Groovy girl and pirate at our house and both are very popular.
Happy new year! I collect baby boomer blogs. Wanna trade links?
ReplyDeleteFiona has the Fiona Groovy Girl. But the clothes were hard for her to change, so the doll never was a favorite. On Christmas Eve, she dressed her in a ball gown for the occasion.
ReplyDeleteWe read the book "The Apple Doll" so we're in the process of making a dried apple doll. Today I bought the yarn for hair and fabric for clothes. Total cost: less than $5.00. Each one absolutely unique.
Free to be you and me, right?
ReplyDeleteI love Groovy Girls -- we have a princess one. *sigh* I wish my daughter was into the pirates -- then maybe I could get her to watch Johnny Depp with me.
ReplyDeleteWe have an apple doll, too, made after reading that book. Very fun.
ReplyDeleteSounds like your girl has just a fabulous imagination--she'll make of the world what she needs to.
We have quite a few Groovy Girls...love them. Patience was attached big time to Siri, but has since let that go. Persistence hasn't shown much interest, I'm sad to say. But we love the Groovy Girls.
ReplyDeleteThe whole princess thing is quite an interesting phenomenon. I would rather have the princess thing than the bratz dolls, which thankfully came after mine were at that age. The American Girl dolls came as my youngest outgrew them. I went to the big store in NYC for a 6 year-old birthday party for my cousin. I just couldn't believe the machine behind the idea.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone ever do handmade one-of=a-kind dolls anymore, I wonder?
It's perfect, though, isn't it? She can dream whatever she wants to dream right now.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love the Groovy Girls. They're awesome.
Oh, gad, I forgot having a daughter would eventually result in princessery. We gave her a little toolbench this year. She has a doll of some sort, but I don't know where it came from.
ReplyDeletewe are just entering the princess phenom. it's perplexing in it's voracity.
ReplyDeleteEveryone's a princess over here, even daddy.
ReplyDelete-andi
Do you think you'd feel differently if you had a boy who was going through an intense princess phase? Just wondering....
ReplyDeleteSeems like most of the posts are from younger moms (and dads?) From an older perspective, I can tell you that I had a friend who insisted that there be no "gender" specific toys in the home. She vowed, no guns and no GI Joes. She had very little to no TV. The results were pretty interesting. Believe it or not, her two sons picked up sticks in the yard and used them as "guns". POW. She was horrified. Her kids grew up well mannered and now the battles are over things like Halo 2. (A popular killing game on X box)
ReplyDeleteI am not sure what conclusions could possibly be drawn from this...but it is interesting. How do we keep our children "safe" from certain influences, media/advertisers? How? is some of this genetic? Also what about the parents who guard against all of these caricatures but then let their kids see R rated movies at 10?
I love the doll! The way that kids understand gender at this age is funny. We let my niece create her own character for the Wii over Christmas and thought it amusing when she selected to be a tall, gray-haired, boy.
ReplyDeleteLife is all about balancing your inner princess with your inner pirate.
ReplyDeleteHere's to your little, royal swash-buckler.
I wish her luck with the pillaging and all...*grin*
ReplyDeleteMy Girl is all princess and pink (but thankfully no Barbie), despite my take on princesses and pink. It's like she was born with the princess thing already brewing. Kids are weird.
I think it's the prerogative of a princess to choose to wear a tiara or be a pirate :)
ReplyDeleteI don't know if she's old enough for Enchanted yet, but that is a "princess" movie worth seeing - very funny! And Groovy Girls are awesome - but not as awesome as girls who can be pirates, too!
ReplyDeleteThe scourge of princesses! Oh, humanity, short-people style.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am jealous of the pirate ship. We went to a pirate museum in Bahamas, and Monkey had a pirate parade at her cruise-ship camp, so she is into it too. Hm, perhaps a girl-pirate convention is in order?
...and no matter how you look at it, Disney's got her in the end. (They are responsible for Pirates of the Carribean, right? Or am I talking out of my ass again?)
ReplyDeleteAs the mother of a two-year-old girl, I am thankful and tentatively hopeful that she will continue her eschewing of all-things-princess, and will instead follow the path of interests that include drawing, music, matchbox cars, and building with blocks. She is WAY interested in big brother's Legos, but doesn't play too much with her doll, which lays in a small crib in the corner of her room.
ReplyDeleteNot that I mind princesses and dolls, per say. Indeed, there is nothing wrong with them, other than the insidious corporate exploitation that is currently associated with them. But I take wild offense to all the pink, pink, pink, and otherwise "girly" blather that I see plastered in the catalogues and such. Are we still in the 50's, or what? I just don't get it.
I hope for so much more for my girl. I hope that she finds herself, despite all the hype and push for an artificial femininity. I, after all, only hold so much power over this. The rest is up to the village.