To ask preschool to not call my daughter princess?

[CaviarAndCigarettes]

I understand princess has become somewhat commonplace in modern language. Where you would once call a young child poppet or sweetheart it has become princess, for girls.

I dislike the terminology. She isn't a princess. She's a very smart, kind and adventurous person. She wrestles better than her older brother and is a tough negotiator. She's intuitive, creative, friendly and inquisitive.

We have consciously never called her princess and always use the same affectionate language with her and her brother - darling, sweetheart, superstar etc
Yet two weeks into preschool she is OBSESSED that she needs to be called princess.

Normally I would have put this down to other kids but I have heard the preschool team calling her princess several times within the two weeks - I hoped she wouldn't pick up on it and it wouldn't stick.

I know how difficult it is to not say something that just slips off your tongue with no malice or ill thought behind it. I haven't asked them to not call her princess and even if I did it must be a hard habit to break if that is their go to term of endearment for little girls... but I really want to ask them to try not to. And explain why. I want them to praise her efforts and her kindness and her attempts. Not stamp a princess and a sparkle on it..

Aibu?

Has anyone else on this thread got the "Disney Princess" Argos ad appearing on their side bar?

Hear hear count fosco.

I thought you meant the nursery staff told the girls they were strong so that they wouldn’t feel upset if anyone criticised their appearance?

All that hand to eye co-ordination wasted on football when they could be applying perfect eye lashes Or hair extensions, or signing the form to have their arse implanted. or whatever else it is we’re meant to be doing up ourselves these days.

butchy mine is showing ads for Luis Vuitton handbags.

*Seniorcitizen1

A pre school child is a good negotiator - what tosh.*

I’d love to see this in action.

OP- Eat your dinner
DD - No
OP- Yes
DP - NO!
OP - Eat it or no telly
DD - blows raspberry
OP - you have won this negotiation

To be fair, I get the impression from your OP that you’re the one with a strict stereotype of what constitutes ‘a princess’.

Why can’t she like finding adventures, play wresting and STILL be a princess?

Yes. I guess the OP hasn't heard of Princess Mononoke.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Mononoke?wprov=sfla1

It's an interesting one. I can see both sides. Of course there are worse things and of course princesses can be brave and strong etc

But if you ask the average pre schooler what they associate with a princess I think it would be pretty dresses, sitting around in a tower and waiting to be rescued by a prince. Maybe I'm wrong and the new wave of Disney princesses are changing things. But I think on balance it's associated with being passive and compliant and other traditionally 'girly' traits

Yes it's just a word and is coming from a well meaning place as it is a term of endearment but lots of studies have shown due to the language used around girls being different to boys (girls called gorgeous / love / princess, boys called mate / trouble etc), they believe they are less brave / strong etc than they actually are. So in a childcare setting I think they should use the same terms for boys and girls. As a combination of lots of tiny things like this maybe leads to more overt sexism being accepted.

I'm not sure if I'd say something or not. If it's a habit it will be difficult for them to break. They are paid minimum wage and work hard and long hours and can't really cater to every parent. If you do, I think I'd approach it from the POV that she won't respond to her actual name and thinks she's called princess instead of entering a debate around gender stereotyping as I think this thread shows lots of people are still fine with it. I don't think they see the link between calling girls princess and girls wanting to be WAGs instead of engineers

You've got a low opinion of princesses imo

YABU

My 17 year old has just come out of hospital. She is a strong intelligent woman, but to cope with processing the trauma and the emotional response to it she has embraced her inner "princess". Sometimes it is a good thing to teach little girls to put themselves and their own emotional well being first ie classic princess behaviour in common parlance.

Coping with a boisterous nursery environment probably also falls into this category for all but the most "robust" (not necessarily in a good way) 3 year old girls.

Or you could just google Princess Merida.