How to handle family's attempts to turn my dd into a pink princess

[ErnesttheBavarian]

I have 3 ds, then dc 4 is a girl. I'm not a very 'girly' type, hate pink, hate the whole feeble girly thing or gender stereotyping in toys.

Dd play with lots of her brothers' toys, i'm not refusing to get her 'girls' stuff, but I'm certainly not pushing her to glittery things. She loves getting mucky in mud and sand and jumping around.

She's just had a birthday. A couple of family members think I'm somehow being mean by not going full out girly with her. So they deliberatley get full on girls stuff for her, partly so she doesn't somehow miss out, and partly ans a jibe at me. So for her 4 th birthday off us she got a sandpit with sand toys, play dough, paints and a ball.

From these faily members she got a cinderella barbie, a cinderella barbie dress up outfit and a pink sparkle princess jigsaw puzzle and another (scary loooking) doll.

Now she wants to dress up as a princess and sings about how she is a princess etc.

Do i just ignore, try to distract dd from this stuff. I don't want to upset, as they are kind and well meaning, but truly believe I am being mean for not pinking her up. ( one of these is my similar aged sil btw, with 2 dc, boy and girl, and it' blue for boys pink for girls all the way)

We have the same problem. Dd1 had no interests in being a princess but plays with barbies and dolls as well as playing with her pirate ship and climbing trees. She has lots of boy friends. Dd2 won't tolerate any sparkles, sequins or glitter and hates the thought of playing with dolls.

But PILs are determind to make dd2 "a proper girl". At her last birthday they give her make-up (she's three!) and barbies. She thanked them, wrinkled her nose and handed them to me. If she does ever want to start playing with dolls, I would be fine with that.

I'm not too sure about princesses, though. I steered dd1 away from princesses because that focuses too much on how unnecessary personal achievement is. I don't want them to aspire to being born into wealth and privilege or marrying into that. So I would counteract that with stories of strong women who really achieved something with their life. I want them to have a better role model than someone who doesn't need to achieve anything because they have been given it all.

Some people on here really need to find more to worry about My dd loves pink/purple,is obsessed with princesses,glitter etc-nowt wrong with it. I am a girly girl myself so would have been surprised if my dd turned out any different. She still enjoys running around at park,playing in sand,jumping in puddles etc.

You sound extremely curmudgeonly and frankly ungrateful for the nice gifts your dd received. I am sure the charity shop would love them if you dont want to corrupt your dd....

At DD's nursery you would generally find the girls in the fireman and monster costumes and the boys in the princess dresses - one of the many things I liked about it.

IIWY, Ernest, I would just ignore it. The princess tat toys will probably be broken and/or discarded within a few weeks as most of them, IME/O, are really pretty boring because they don't do anything. If the family keep buying her stuff, it will keep getting discarded/broken, and in time your DD will probably express her opinions directly to them and they may or may not listen. My 5yo DD has a reversible dressing up dress - princess on one side, pirate on the other. She was recently invited to a "pirates and princesses" party and was absolutely adamant that she was going to be a pirate - she wore the dress, and she and DS had a wonderful time raiding dressing up boxes to accessorise it with a complete arsenal of weapons. That reassured me that she has worked out already that pirates, on the whole, have more fun than stereotypical princesses.

'Her brothers painted her 4 stones' - that's just lovely.

Maybe think of it as sil is giving lots of pink stuff, you can give her other things.
So she'll end up with the best of both worlds?
I agree it's annoying she's doing it to try and get at you, though.

I used to find, once they were at school, that birthday parties provided a lot of pink, doll and hair stuff.

I hate the princess thing because the princesses, and the way they are marketed, all focus on appearance. Being pretty, wearing dresses, wearing make-up. I think it reinforces something that any person should rebel against; the idea that women are decoration, that any role they decide to take in life will be affected (negatively or positively) by the way they look and how much effort they put into their appearance. Which sucks, not least because that same pressure is not on men (they get science kits for their birthdays, don't they? Not make up kits?)

I haven't stopped my dd from having all of this stuff, not least because she gets presents of it, but I'm trying to teach her to think critically about what she is playing with, and to question it. And actually, I think it's important that she is exposed to it, so that she can be taught to think critically, and helped to make genuine choices of her own. If family were insistent on ladling on the princess stuff, I think I would make it clear that I think too much of it is unhealthy, though I wouldn't tell them what to do with their money, tbh. I tend to squirrel away anything that I think she doesn't really need. She does have 'girly' toys, as well as neutral and 'boy' toys, and plays with them equally.

1. Dye the clothes blue in a fun afternoon with your daughter learning about dyes.
2. Let her loose with scissors - I remember cutting hair off dolls and cutting up their clothes as a child never mind pulling off the arms to see how they worked inside.
3. Buy those relatives some books on how to ensure girls do not grow up in a sexist way for Christmas or a voucher to attend a course on the same topic.

Is she too young for Hanni and Nanni do you think Ernst? There is a princess in that who is not remotely pink and sparkly and is excellent at fencing... My 4yo DS and 6 yo DD enjoyed it at the cinema yesterday.

My in-laws, and indeed my own mother, buy my kids (boys and girls) things I have said they don't need/ don't need more of, some people buy gifts the child wants, others buy gifts that are vastly more to do with the giver than the receiver - in fact my mother seems to think that is how it should be, it is annoying, especially when the child latches onto it and it irritates... but I disagree that little girls here in Bavaria don't do the princess thing much - how many girls at KiGa aren't princesses for Fasching???

Xenia, I like the way you think... .

Ernest, I am up against the similar/opposite problem with 4 boys. Some members of the (extended) family think they must be interested in guns/cars/CoD (my eldest is 9, FFS!) and all things macho stereotyped. As it happens, some of my boys are interested, and some aren't, so I'd go with the 'you cannot make someone desire something'.

My mother would have loved me to be a bit more girly and I am just not. Never have been, never will be. I remember being at friends' houses and feeling really bewildered by Barbie dolls - I just did not know how to play with them and found them, frankly, weird and off-putting. I loved my baby dolls, mind .

Hanni und Nanni is a great idea.
How about Pippi Langstrumpf - another nicely anarchic 'princess' (pirate princess counts, doesn't it?)

I'd let your DD dress up to her hearts content, don't discourage, don't encourage, and she will make her preferences known.
I have lovely photos of my DSs in pink sparkly princess outfits - from the dressing up box at their toddler group. There were tears and tantrums on one memorable occasions because the dress/tiara/sparkly wand and shoes could not come home with us....

You are encouraging your dd to think "critically" about the toys she plays with-are you being serious? Wow.

I would/did put it gently aside and make sure she has plenty of non-pink/princessy toys too. With 3 dds we got given our fair share of pink sparkly stuff, nail painting kits, etc mostly from mothers of boys (we had our relatives better trained/more scared of us). We didn't take it away or ban it, we just left it, and bought them other things. Mine weren't into pink sparkly stuff, 2 are totally averse to anything remotely girly and the 3rd shifts around a bit, but as others have said it's a bit hard to stop them if that's what they want to be like, and counter-productive to try.

I love Xenia's solutions

I also like your Thomas analogy, LRD, especially as I can just imagine someone doing that (and FWIW I hate Thomas with a passion far greater than pink). Its interesting to consider how you'd feel if you'd been presented with a collection along those lines.

I'm not sure what the real answer is, but what I'd have done I think is to let the clothes etc work their way quickly to the bottom of the washing basket / toy chest at which point IME at that age they'll be quickly forgotten.

Sounds familiar - I turn a blind eye to it and cringe in silence, and offer all the gender neutral toys, which the daughter happily combines with the pink guff - so usually the pink fairy costume is being teamed with a viking sword...

I can recommend reading "Cinderella ate my daughter" by Peggy Orenstein.

It depends on aage when girls can get pen knives but I can remember fun with those, cutting into the doll's flesh, trying to prize off the hair. Things like fire making kits from flint are good presents for girls. I remember as a child getting for Christmas a monthly science club subscription and each month through the post would come the latest stuff to experience with. My daughters who are now pretty successful in work (both graduated) had their fair share of knives and ropes and gender neutral robbies, lots of sport and physical things and I even bought them books for under 8s with role reversal in there to read at story time. We did find those rather funny at times - the lady doctor with the stay at home husband, the plumber or window cleaner who was female etc etc but I don't think it did any harm to buy them those books from some kind of feminist book club and they certainly have turned out to be fairly rounded young women. Of course the example at home is men scrubbing floors and cooking as much as women so that always helps too.

As I've said, I think it's the fact that sil has told me she is only doing it because she thinks I am denying dd and that somehow dd is missing out, because me, her wicked mother won't buy her pink sparkles.

Actually, if she wanted it, I would and not loose sleep over it.

But she doesn't want it. When they could go to kindergarten dressed up, she chose to go as a policeman despite having a couple of dresses.

Ishoes, I'm sorry if you think I sound ungrateful. I'm not. The only gifts my dd gets apart from what I buy for her are what sil buys (from her and from fil), so we appreciate her gifts extra lots .

No one else gets her anything, so it is a significant thing. Dd is not overrun with presents, so when the only ones she gets apart from mine are something she doesn't want i think it's a shame.

It comes down to sil thinking I am wrong and she will deliberately buy something that goes against what I would do, rather than sil buying something dd wants, so it feels like a go at my parenting in a way.

But that's looking at in under a magnifying glass.

Taking a step back, of course, it's lovely that someone else took the time to buy and wrap her a present, it would just be a bit nicer if that present was more tailored to the recipient rather than my perceived failings.

BTW I love my sil very much and she is like a sister to me. We are close and can always turn to each other. I'm sure it's not malicious just a more subconscious challenge & disagreement on this issue. Like I said, her ds bedroom is blue and all accessories for him are blue, for dd everything is pink. even the pushchair.... Different strokes & all that I suppose. Last winter she was horrified I put ds old (barely worn) navy and red coat on her and said in faint horror and disgust she looks like a boy, and a couple of weeks later, dn old coat arrived in the post :) Maybe next christmas or birthday I can say she really likes xyz at the moment.

btw, I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this - Xenia, you're scary! :)

I think you have to have faith that you are having a far bigger effect on her character, by your example and by all the things that you are encouraging her to do, than any sparkly, princessy stuff will do. She will add the sparkly, princessy stuff to the things she can already do - it won't replace things she loves doing. You can't isolate her from pink, sparkly fripperies, but you can (and clearly have) raise her not to be the sort of wimpy character that pink sparkliness exemplifies for you.

The pink thing is very bizarre. So glad that when my dds were growing up it wasn't around - I remember their babygros and toys were a riot of colour and there was hardly a pink toy around.

I don't think the pink thing matters too much OP - it's a fashion that, hopefully, will pass. And princesses don't have to be wimps. On one of the biogs about the royal family last week Princess Anne was interviewed about growing up with three brothers in a palace and was it difficult being the only girl - i.e. code for not much pink frill around. She brushed it off by saying she wasn't really interested in that sort of stuff anyway and, of course, she went on to be a world class equestrian. Don't seem to remember her being very princessy either when a would-be kidnapper tried to drag her out of the royal car years ago.

So, relax. Princesses don't have to be wimps and your example will be much more important long term than pink tat.

Very interesting.

I am the evil auntie that insists on getting dnephews the stuff the stuff they don't like and aren't interested in. All three of them only ever play electronic games, and so year after year I quite deliberately choose something else to broaden their horizons a bit. (tbh their every electrical whim is always catered for). So, we have produced kites, scooters, skateboards (with helmet and pads, natch), and all manner of things that I know dsis won't. I don't see it as depriving them of something they want, but giving them a chance to explore some other stuff too. I don't have a particular vested interest in whether they care to take it all up as a hobby or interest, as far as I am concerned I am giving them options. I have no idea if dsis has hidden it all in the cupboard, or flogged it on eBay, nor do I particularly care.

So I am just like your family.

Am I more socially acceptable in your view? Or just as freaking annoying?

If you haven't read 'Cinderella ate my daughter' by Peggy Orenstein, you should, btw. We have had pink plastic shite dumped on both dd's since time immemorial by family (and just you wait for school birthday parties - you ain't seen nothing yet), and at 8 and 12, neither are pink obsessed. They chose blue for their room and I haven't seen a princess in years. Dd2 dressed as dumbledore for the last fancy dress thang, and dd1 was a bee. In a yellow and black stripy sweater and deely boppers. Both girls also dance, but so does ds1.

Pink is ok as long as they have options. As she isn't getting pressure from immediate family or peers (yet), I really wouldn't stress too much. Barbie is as capable of using a zip line as action man is, tbh.

Smile sweetly and continue to buy your own stuff for dd. I'm sure that's what dsis does with me.

had a similar thing with ds - we don't have toy guns or soldiers in our house, his aunt bought him one of those HM forces soldiers who has a rocket launcher and shouts about grenades and taking cover etc etc. I actually managed to tell my in laws that Barbie/bratz is banned in our house, so my dd didn't get any of that nonsense for her birthday, although I did get my inlaws clearly thinking I'm a twat. She did get dressing up things including a fairy outfit but she mixes that up with her lightening mcqeen one and my ds likes the pink shoes and wand so it's all good fun really. and if, when she's older, all her friends have a barbie and she really wants one she can have one. my local asda has a 'girls toys' and 'boys toys' section. maybe i should write to them. it makes me want to puke.

I am of the same mind as MonsieurChatouille with regard to princesses, I try to steer away for the same reasons.

Even if you don't buy in to the whole pink princess outfit thing they will still end up doing it anyway using blankets, ribbons and their mums clothes like I did due to the prevalence of princess stories in books, on tv and in films. It is a phase, I did it but went on to train in Geology (lots of mud and male dominated field) and up until recently was the breadwinner in our family.

Wouldn't allow anyone to give my girls barbies as I think they are just awful with their inhuman proportions and highly sexualised attire. Don't mind other dolls, but not the Bratz/Barbie ilk.

Quite like pink in moderation, just not the sparkly, sequiny, shiny stuff that goes with it, and NO, NO, NO to slogans like 'eye candy', 'future WAG', 'so many boys, so little time' and 'princess'. DD1's favourite colour is red and she asked for a blue bedroom so I have no worries there.

Equally if I had sons then guns and war themes would be a no no to me too.

Maybe you are surprised at the fact that even though you say she doesn't want it she seems to be enjoying it?

She is four, and you should let her just be herself, prefer what she likes whenever she likes it. A sense of autonomy and the idea that your choices are respectworthy are good things to show a child. The best way to handle this (imo) is to let her choose what to play with and how, now that she has the stuff, and respect her choice. She has the stuff now whether you like it or not, and therefore the question is how best to accommodate it in your home, how best to accommodate the revelation her response to it has turned out to be with your view of her and your model of how a girl should be.

If the Barbie is anything like the ones in my home, she will end up naked under the bed with the dust bunnies in no time. I would actually prefer to see a child take care of possessions and keep track of accessories that come with dolls, etc., no matter what they are.

There is some value in pretty much everything. The trick will be how to extract a positive in terms of social and emotional development from something that you see as a negative. Choice of plaything, flexibility in roleplay opportunities, respect for her autonomy from you and her dad and brothers, tidiness, responsibility for possessions, writing a thank you note, negotiating with brothers to play with her with the barbie stuff or incorporating the barbie into the sandpit, etc are all positives that can come from this.

I'm not opposed to pink things per se. I haven't bought much of it but we have managed to accumulate plenty over they years. We also have a lot of stuff like nail polish and hair accessories. It's all just stuff or things that are on the outside of the individual when it all boils down. If I tell the DCs not to judge a book by its cover then I need to follow suit. I concentrate on their skills, emotional intelligence and sense of competence, and supporting them through school academically and socially, and let a lot of the 'stuff' just wash over us. If you assign it too much importance you give it more power than it really has.

I loathe princess stuff with a screaming passion - but more importantly I would be inordinately fucked off at family members deliberately going against your express wishes.