Why I would prefer if you didn’t call my daughter a “Princess”…

Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure you mean well.

Lately, I feel more and more like a crank. I also feel more and more accurate and honest.

As I move forward through life, I am finding myself less concerned with upsetting people and more concerned with being truly honest with them. I have come to believe that by not being fully honest with people, I am often depriving them of the opportunity to reflect on their actions, to assess if their actions could be better and also to connect more truly with me.

Okay, cliché time!

Princess (noun)-

The close female relative of a monarch, especially a granddaughter.
The wife or widow of a prince.
A woman or thing regarded as pre-eminent in a particular sphere or group.
A spoilt or arrogant young woman.

Source – Oxford English Dictionary Online.

So those’re the technical meanings out of the way.

I’d love someday for my daughter to be “pre-eminent in a particular sphere or group”, but even in that scenario, I’d rather the term used to describe her dominance not rely on her gender to express it.

Lets take it back to associations. What qualities do you associate with a “princess”?

I’m going to make a list of things that I believe people are thinking:

• Pretty
• Sweet
• Polite
• Kind
• Gentle and so forth.

That’s all very fine and complimentary, but the fact is that the whole “Princess” thing comes with so much more baggage than that.

There are whole books on the subject (“Cinderella Ate My Daughter” being a great one that I admittedly have not fully finished reading. Also, not an affiliate link.), so I won’t try and delve too much into evidence and case examples and I will just tell you what I currently believe.

I believe that growing up with the ideal image of a “Princess” can steer a girl toward limiting her options for progress and the choices that she considers for herself. If you know me, you know I would consider this a Very Bad Thing.

What’s in a word?

Words are nothing and words are everything.

A large part of our conscious thought even takes place in words. You would know that you frame certain parts of your considerations in words. Hell, you are probably even reading this “aloud” in your head as you read it, allowing the words to echo in your mind as if spoken. Most people do, if they aren’t speed readers. (As an aside, I have dabbled in speed reading and recommend trying it, but I don’t enjoy it.)

When you have a thought and you can not find “the right word” to express it, it is often intensely frustrating. We have empowered words (through necessity) to express so much and direct so much emotion.

It is for this reason that I think using a term of reference for a person can have a dramatic effect upon them, especially a child. Just giving someone a role to fill, a name for their “type”, could have significant power to push them toward it.

I don’t want my daughter to grow up wanting to be a Princess. I want my daughter to grow up wanting to be whoever she is. Not a Girly Girl, not a Tomboy, not a Princess, not a Ball Breaker, not a Femme Fatale; just a female with a range of interests in which she is interested and choices which she has chosen not to fill a role but because they are the ones that make her feel better and her life better.

Consider this: What associations do you have with young women who still have things like “Princess” tagged on their clothing and vehicles? Do you consider them empowered and individual?
Do you find it okay to refer to your daughter with a term associated with tales where a relationship with a Prince is nearly always the ultimate prize?
Do you believe your daughter should idolise people who do not create, do not provide and do nothing of use other than occupy their position?