to try to stop my dd daughter watching Disney girly shlock classics for as long as I can?

[mrszimmerman]

It's just a personal thing, no comment on what anyone else chooses to do. I just happen to think the Disney message about what it is to be female is lamentable.

I tend to think that the longer I can keep these messages away from her then maybe she'll have time to grow some self esteem that isn't tarnished with ideals of blonde perfection and being saved by a prince!
I expect to be given a hard time of course, but wonder whether there' anyone else out there who is trying to hold out for a bit against the evils of Disney shlock!

I do acknowledge that later Disneys have got better with their female role modelling.
Also my mother hated Disney so I have a strong inherited dislike of some of the more dodgy ones. I like the good ones like the jungle book etc.

We saw very little Disney when I was a child, partly I think due to my mum wanting to avoid the pink/princess stereotypes, and also she has issues with cutesy anthropomorphic animals (although Beatrix Potter, Wind in the Willows and non-Disney Winnie the Pooh were all fine...go figure!). Very old favourites like Bambi and Dumbo she made an exception for, but I never saw Robin Hood or the Jungle Book till I was grown up!

However that didn't stop me being obsessed with princesses and fairy tales, but these can be channelled into more positive directions.....I can remember seeing a picture of the Disneyworld castle and saying to my mum 'I'd like to go there', and she replied 'You wouldn't like it if you went there, it's not a real castle, it's just made of plastic' and I was quite happy with that explanation.

Fast forward 15 odd years and the little girl who loved fairy tales and 'real' castles ended up studying Grimms fairy tales and Hans Christian Andersen at university - it was an interest that never wore off!

I still treasure the beautifully illustrated fairy tale editions I had as a child and I wish I still had the princess dress my granny made for me - NB it was blue and white with flowers rather than pink, but I did have a tiara and sash I loved wearing with it...

AARRGHHH I feel a flounce coming on. Not that i'll be missed. Hmpf...maybe I should join a lentil weaver parenting forum. Trouble is they are all so SAPPY.

My DD is 3 and she has said that she is the princess and asked my DS (5) to be her knight and save her. DS actually obliged, fetching an umbrella to rescue her. It is very hard to get away from (I have tried!) and DD is in a nursery chatting with her (girl) friends about this sort of stuff every morning. It is hard to do anything without risking DD not feeling able to discuss stuff with her little friends - because that's what they want to talk about. So I just let it happen now.

Is Tangled Disney?

you can control it for a while but at some stage they just watch what they want, don't they? Actually what I personally really dislike is all the American teenie programmes where it is all about looking right/having money and the right clothes to be liked and not be a geek who gets picked on till he/she learns to dress right. All that kind of rubbish and tbh I feel however they dress them up, these tv shows all have that message in the end and it is hard to escape from it

SNow white and sleeping beauty are quite old, so you can't exactly expect them to be PC. But have you seen the Hunchback of Notre Dame? That's by Disney, and IMO, it's got amazing music, and a lovely story about fighting for your beliefs and how not to judge a book by it's cover. I

Ah well, scrap all that then. DD is fully Disney-fied :o

Accept defeat, it will happen

I avoided Disney for as long as possible - mainly for the human rights issues, but at the same time I didn't want to force my ideals on my daughter - so we discouraged it for as long as we could. Unfortunately though, she eventually found Disney and did all of the pink princess thing ... Thankfully though now at 8 we're through the other side and the princesses are considered a bit babyish. Unfortunately now DD2 is at the height of. Disney princess mania

I grew up on Disney schlock and loved it, and it didn't influence me at all. I'm now a stay at home mum with few job prospects and fading beauty. Aww shit.

I don't think a child will miss out from not watching the more classical Disney, but I can't imagine a childhood without Disney Pixar. We're a Cars/Toy Story mad family here... I like them.

YANBU to do whatever you see fit OP but I think if you went as far as banning your child from watching Disney whilst on a playdate at someone else's house, or disallowing your child to love the princesses and like pink, then it starts to go into the realms of U.

I agree with you, hold off for as long as you can.

If you haven't watched them yet, the Studio Ghibli films have strong female role models that don't conform to ridiculous stereotypes that you see in some Disney films. My Neighbor Totoro would be a good one for your DD at her age.

I agree that Pixar is much worse than Disney Princesses.

Surely it is more of a matter of what the OP is suggesting is watched instead of Disney, and if the alternative is preferable?

Just keep her well away from Beauty and the Beast - such disturbing messages about violence and standing by a man no matter what he does to you...

Scarlett?!!

I go about this the other way I let both my children DS and DD watch Disney but I also offer sterotypical boy things however DD is uninterested in dressing up as a princess and doesnt like disney films. She likes the marvel cartoons and dresses up as Iron Man Captain America and bumble bee. I have toldmy family no more Disney (they keep saying I am forceing her to like boys things so I showed them what happens when I put a Disney film on) as she doesnt like it and asked for marvel things and tracksuits instead of dresses. Cinderella was on the other day DD left the room and DS sat down and watched it and tried to persuade DD to wear a dress she was having none of it.

I liked Beauty and the Beast as a child because Gaston was funny and stupid and Belle liked to read like me. I played with Disney and Barbie but I was mostly a tomboy and as a adult dont wear makeup or heels or pink mostly jeans or a tracksuit. I think stoping her will make it more desirable I would just make sure she is also offered alternatives like play football with her get all muddy let her watch boys cartoons too.

DS loves Disney, he was crying on Sunday because he wanted to wear DDs princess dress (she is 2 years younger, and tiny he wouldnt get his leg in it!!)

Crawling, isn't providing stereotypical boy things as well as stereotypical girl things simply doubling the problem? Wouldn't it be better to show children things that aren't stereotyped?

Gwendoline- I did wonder when you said DD didn't watch Disney if you had remembered your thread about tangled!

I didn't buy the dvd so didn't take much notice and I wasn't in the room for the trailers etc. I think I thought it was Pixar or something.

No it means they dont associate a ball as a boys toy and a doll as a girls it removes the sterotype I basically offer all items and let them pick so they dont see it that way. Picking pyjamas is a good one I get all the pyjamas in thier size and ask them to choose some will be more girly some more boyish some neutral. Both DD and DS tend to pick either the neutral or boys ones but I am not forcing them to be boyish girly or in the middle I am letting them decide who they are and what they like. I just offer all options.

I was more thinking in terms of what she is watching. Captain American and Iron Man are boys doing things sterotyped as associated with boys. What is the role of women in those cartoons and films?