http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1976402,00.html
This is a movement I can get behind. I’m really very glad I grew up before the princess-pink explosion. By age 6, I was a tomboy. I liked jeans and tennies. I climbed fences. I did NOT like dolls. I ran around, biked the neighborhood and tried to get to the top of anything that wasn’t moving. My Dad was proud that both his daughters could bait their own fishing hooks. And as a result, I’m an adult woman who has no fear of changing tires, can hammer a nail with aplomb and know that my hands are for doing things, not just really sophisticated display units for pretty nails.
Don’t get me wrong. I love a fluffy-pink twin-set as much as the next girl. And I’m not entirely immune to a bit of bling. But I know that the world is full of choices for me. And I’m not any less of a woman because I choose to step out of the girly box.
And that’s what worries me. That girly box is getting really, really full of images that are really, really pretty, but it also shrinking. At a time, when women truly can be anything, we’re raising girls who are getting a smaller and smaller picture of what “anything” is. Stand still, be pretty, and people will do things for you. The more people do things for you, the less ability you have to do for yourself. Will those girls not be attracted to the sciences because the microscopes don’t come in pink? Will be growing up to be President be less attractive because it’s not as good as being a princess?
And I definitely don’t think this should be the end of pink. Pink is a great color. But there’s a rainbow out there. Little girls, and little boys, should be free to grab any color they want.
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5 comments:
I love Pink - even painted my bedroom that color as a kid - but I think they are exaggerating when I look at my niece's vast toy collections - there are many Disney princesses in blue, green and yellow too - plus the vbast array of Polly Pockets, Faeries, My Little Pony, etc. If pink is dominant, its cause the kid likes it best.
I'm less gigged about the color (had a pink bedroom myself, with rosebud curtains) than about the absolute dominance of the culty of cutesy girls. How did the world go from I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar to Because I'm the Princess?
Not to mention the hoochy-mama epidemic. When did women let themselves get treated solely like a booty call? It starts at such a young age that it's scary. Since I don't have kids I can't honestly say what I'd let them watch, listen to, or wear but I'm fairly certain I would NOT let my kid be a hoochy.
What this article should be talking about is the amount of $$ parents spend on stuff. Kids don't just wear a cheap tiara and a cute dress and call themselves a princess - they have to have the Disney version with dress, shoes, tiara, and acoutrements. I went to Target yesterday to buy some small, cute Easter baskets for my family but instead I found Dora baskets, tonka truck baskets, Sesame street baskets. Holy crap! What if a parent can't afford the speciality basket?! It's crazy what the kid market pushes out there and parents feel expected to purchase. That's what I'd be up in arms with if I had kids.
I really can't decide whether it's some sort of strange wish fulfillment by proxy (giving your kids the things you'd want for yourself) or that parents feel like it's child abuse not to give your kid extravagant things. Probably both. But really, kids can't be worse right? We were like this. We must have been. Everybody thinks the next generation is a disaster. These kids will grow up and it will all be fine. Right?
I know I wasn't like some of these kids today! I didn't have designer jeans or sneakers until way later. When the kids would tease me about shopping at Kmart - they were right. My parents couldn't afford it so we didn't get it. How embarassing NOT to have Jordache or Nike, but I did survive.
I think some parents today a) didn't have it growing up and b) want to keep up with the Joneses and that includes buying all the crap kids don't need. They say that tween shopping has exploded and that tweens are very big consumers and they make the decisions on how to decorate their rooms or what clothes to buy much more so than we ever did.
Someone will have to stop the merry-go-round of consumerism or this tanked economy will happen all over again in 20 years.
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