I really thought that, having a boy, I would get to avoid the whole "princess" thing. I know it's heterosexist, but it's the truth. My thought process wasn't quite a conscious, "Yes! Princesses are for girls. This kid is a boy! Dodged that bullet!" but it was close.
No such luck on the bullet-dodging.
Every morning for the past some-number-of-days (it feels like forever, honestly), Rob has freed Westley from his pajamas and overnight diaper only to be met with the request, "Wet's put me in one of your shirts!" And as soon as it's on his body, that T-shirt is suddenly a dress, and Westley, inside it, is a princess.
Do not - I repeat, do not - attempt to address him as anything else. You will be sternly corrected:
Me: "Come here, please, Westley."
Him, sternly, prompting me: "Come here my wittle princess."
One morning when my mom was over, Westley explained the situation to her. "I decided I was a princess," he said.
My mom attempted to explain that princesses were girls, but you know what? You could be a prince!
Westley shot that down so fast, and with so much ferocity, you'd think she'd just tried to tell him that all the cookies on the planet had suddenly disappeared.
"NO!" he shouted. "I A PRINCESS!"
"It's all right," I assured him. "You can be anything you want to be."
But inside my head I was thinking, But why a princess, buddy?
It's not Westley's imagination that I have a problem with. I cannot express how much I love that his world is still so magical. All it takes for him to be transformed is one of his father's T-shirts. It doesn't even matter what T-shirt! It could have words or pictures or some work-promotional-material on it, but it's still a princess's dress to Westley.
The problem, for me, is semantic. I don't want to address my son as "princess." If I had a daughter, I wouldn't want to address her as "princess," either. I don't want to address anyone as "princess" unless she's an actual, honest-to-goodness princess. As in, that's her title. The thing that would be printed on her business cards, if, for some reason, she needed them.
The word rubs me completely the wrong way. It's my own narrowmindedness talking, but when I think "princess" (as in the "dress up and make-believe" kind of princess), I think of someone who waits for a prince. Someone passive. Someone whose job is to be beautiful and appealing to a prince.
Admittedly, Westley isn't primping in front of the mirror, warbling to his woodland creature BFFs about how some day his prince will come. He's tearing around the house in a ridiculously-too-big-on-him T-shirt, wanting me to call him "princess." And I want him to be who he really is, and play how he wants to play. And if he wants to do "girl things" instead of (or in addition to) "boy things," I think that's wonderful! I want Westley to do what he loves to do, now and in the future, regardless of gender roles. I don't want to interfere with his imagination. But something in me wants to crush the "let's call me a princess" thing, based solely on my associations with the word.
I realize that this is my problem to work on. I remind myself that it's just a word, that this is about me and my stuff, that Westley isn't playing princess on purpose to bother me. And I'm trying to enjoy the cute of all of it. How sweet and wonderful it is that Westley doesn't care what's "for boys" and what's "for girls." That he can play and do what he likes without thinking about what is and is not "acceptable" or "appropriate" according to his peers and society in general.
That to him, being a "princess" means wearing a floor-length dress and living in a cool-looking building called a castle - no handsome prince and "happily ever after" narrative required.
5 comments:
Please enjoy because he is a boy and all too soon he will be reminded of his position in the world as a boy. He won't want to play princess or anything else girly.
I think it is so unfair (not meaning you and your family) that society thinks it is ok for girls to be tomboys but not for boys to be janegirls (or whatever the term would be)!
It is so awesome that he is so imaginative and yeah he is probably pretending to be a princess because princesses are always so bright, pretty and sparkly, and it most movies they sing.
noelle, how could you have not foreseen an obsession with princesses when you named him WESTLEY? don't worry, this will be over soon, and he'll be insisting that you call him inigo montoya.
When Julian turned 4, he wanted his birthday party theme to be Disney princesses. I have no objection to him playing with "girl toys" because I don't want to assign a gender to something he might find enjoyment in. But I had to shoot that one down, mostly because I didn't want to have to explain to 20 different sets of parents about why my 4 year old boy loved princesses so much.
I also take issue with the word "princess" mostly because I dislike the attitude that goes along with people who use it in reference to their children. It reminds me of awful hellion children whose parents find them perfect in every way. Also, the Disney princesses are so blah. The underlying message in all those films is that girls are only worth something if they have a handsome prince. These objections are completely aside from what I'm sure Westley is thinking about though.
I love when tiny boys cross over that line and go right into typically girly things. It's so, so cute, and will pass soon enough. Julian has no desire anymore to be a princess. Although when he has ladyfriends over, he doesn't hesitate to bust out his thrift store dollhouse and impress the hell out of them.
Like Allison, I really dislike the word and how it's used to describe "perfect little girls". At our baby shower we we gifted a plain black frame with the word "princess" in silver letters across the bottom. I have a picture in it, but it's in a box. I just can't stand to see it on the shelf, HA! I should have kept it in the box and regifted it to a friend who's super down with the whole theme :-)
You make a good point, Joanna. Incidentally, I can't wait until he's old enough to see the movie that inspired his name. I just hope he likes it - I'm kind of screwed if he doesn't.
It's totally the word princess that I dislike, mostly for what it's come to represent in the lovely world of gender stereotyping. I'm SO BEYOND delighted that Westley doesn't yet have a concept of "for boys" and "for girls."
In fact, every time I see something actually calling itself "for boys" or "for girls" (as happens more often than I would expect), I cringe.
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