Pink Princessing

I'm really, really happy that someone wrote this article titled "Pink is not the Enemy, Stereotypes Are." by the author of the Portrait of an Adoption blog. I'm sick of the anti-pink for girls movement right now. I know I'm supposed to be encouraging my daughter to be a strong, self sufficient person with good self esteem so she can survive in today's world and floating around in a pink Disney princess costume may not sound like a way to do this. But purposely turning her away from pink when it's her favorite color is NOT the way to lead her in the right direction either in my mind. And neither is trying to encourage her to be a tomboy when she clearly loves dancing and taking care of baby dolls better by her own choice. And my favorite - I'm NOT supposed to tell her she's beautiful ever?

Teaching great tools for self expression like reading, writing, drawing and problem solving are better ways to give her the skills to survive. I'd rather have her draw what comes to her mind (which at this stage is ALL princesses), and help her learn and read all about anything related to princesses. I'd rather have her help me "solve" the problem of getting the Princess to the castle in time to marry Prince Charming using a basic map and symbols and colors. She's genuinely interested in this right now. She will learn better with this subject which she loves so much. Think about it, the last time you loved something with a passion, didn't you want to learn all about it?

There's this whole argument out there that princesses and Barbies are bad for helping girls develop a positive sense of body image. I'm sure there's some truth to this and many an argument can be made for it. Yeah, I know, Barbie's body proportions are physically impossible for humans. But as someone who had a horrible body image for a long time - I can tell you, Barbie and Cinderella didn't cause it. We didn't have a lot of pink anything around our house and very few Barbies growing up. No, it wasn't that. It was the other girls- girls are just mean as snakes for a period of time regardless of the color of their bedroom or how many princess costumes they own or because they'd rather take Ballet than try to push their way into a football game.  Seriously.

Everyone has their own favorite color, and I'm by no means saying you should dress your girl in pink and blue and follow some pre-determined social outline on color choices. All I'm saying is that I do not believe that being all pink for girls is that bad, whether it was some giant marketing ploy created in the mid 1900's to scheme us all out of our money or not. Who really cares if it was a marketing scheme?

I'm also not saying you should go all Toddlers and Tiaras on it and dress your kid in poofy tutus and parade her around in front of judges. That's crazy. I just believe that we can do better for our girls by encouraging them to learn through something they love even if the princess has unrealistic proportions and can't find her own way so she has to be rescued by a Prince. Ha.

So, what's your kid's favorite color? Does anyone have any proof that "pink princessing" is harmful for kids? If you do, I'd love to read it.