Mamas, Don't Let Your Baby Girls Grow up to be Princesses

Think about the qualities you hope to instill in your children--strength, integrity, love, resourcefulness, and creativity.  You want that for your boys...and your girls.

 I've been blessed with two darling young daughters.  One is only four and yet almost every single birthday party she's attended this year has been a princess party.  And in just four years, "Princess" has been her go-to costume for the October 31st trick-or-treating festivities.  Why is it that every little girl just wants to be a little princess?  Yet, if someone called my twelve-year-old "a little princess" the phrase would bring with it nothing but negative connotations?  Do we really want our daughters to grow up to be  egotistical, narcissistic, self absorbed divas waiting in captivity for a knight in shining armor to rescue them?  Have I sent my young sidekick the message that God made her for nothing more than her pretty face?  Should I encourage her to spend hours preening and primping when an estimated 25,000 children around the world die every single day because of sickness, starvation, and a lack of clean water?  Of course not.

We spend the first two years of our children's lives modeling behavior that indicates that the world exists solely for their benefit, then the next sixteen trying to convince them that "Just kidding, it doesn't."  Our girls deserve more.  We place a premium on beauty, reinforce greed, compliment the elaborate wardrobes and beautiful homes that belong to others, and twist the reality in which we live and for what?  So we can all pretend that our precious girls are fairytale princesses?

What if being a princess meant kindness?  What if it meant sharing with others?  What if being a princess stood for love above all else?  How could we teach our little princesses that inner beauty is the reigning quality of a true heir to the throne of grace?

Storybook princesses overcome tremendous hardship and face overwhelming danger before ultimately living happily ever after.  And although we want the fairytale ending, we often deny ourselves the gift of the sacrifices that shape us in the everyday living.

I'm not anti-princess.  If I'm being completely honest, statistics show that most American girls might has well be princesses for all the luxuries life in this country affords.  A closet full of clothes, a pantry full of snacks and many with a private bedroom and bathroom as well.  Why would they think they were anything but the progeny of the richest nation in the world?  As I sit here and write, though, I am wondering how that word defines this littlest generation of girls.  What an enormous responsibility we have to share what God has entrusted to us.  I'm still trying to figure out how to do that.  The next time Cari Jill dons a costume and twirls around the room, I hope I remember to encourage her confidence or her imaginative play instead of the way she looks in that dress.

Maybe one day when we hear the word, "princess" applied to someone we know, instead of conjuring up an image of a young girl in a frilly frock, we'll think instead of a sweet-spirited young woman with, above all else, a heart that puts others first.