The Feminist’s Guide to Raising a Little Princess

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“May God grant me the serenity to accept the color pink, the courage to not let my house become a shrine to pink and princesses, and the wisdom to know that pink is just a color, not a decision to never attend college in the hopes of marrying wealthy.”
 - from The Feminist’s Guide to Raising a Little Princess
 
 Smart, funny, and thought-provoking, this book shows feminist parents how to navigate their daughters’ princess-obsessed years by taking a non-judgmental and positive approach.
   
Devorah Blachor, an ardent feminist, never expected to be the parent of a little girl who was totally obsessed with the color pink, princesses, and all things girly. When her three-year-old daughter fell down the Disney Princess rabbit hole, she wasn’t sure how to reconcile the difference between her parental expectations and the reality of her daughter’s passion.
   
In this book inspired by her viral New York Times Motherlode piece “Turn Your Princess-Obsessed Toddler Into a Feminist in Eight Easy Steps,” Blachor offers insight, advice, and plenty of humor and personal anecdotes for other mothers who cringe each morning when their daughter refuses to wear anything that isn’t pink. Her story of how she surrendered control and opened up—to her Princess Toddler, to pink, and to life—is a universal tale of modern parenting. She addresses important issues such as how to raise a daughter in a society that pressures girls and women to bury their own needs, conform to a beauty standard and sacrifice their own passions.”Blachor’s The Feminist’s Guide to Raising a Little Princess is a fun, informative read peppered with funny anecdotes and informative thoughts on things like the value of embracing the feminine, American optimism, and maternal healthcare. (There’s also a chapter that will feel all too familiar to any parent that’s ever taken their toddler to Disneyland Paris and immediately regretted it). This is a book about what it means to be a feminist and trying to raise a feminist daughter who happens to be obsessed with the color pink, frilly dresses, and also being a princess. It’s also about why you can’t blame Disney. Even if you really, really want to.” 
– Jennifer McCartney, New York Times bestselling author of The Joy of Leaving Your Sh*t All Over the Place

“I am pro-princess and became a staunch feminist (this combo is because of, not in spite of, my feminist mother). Devorah Blachor is a staunch feminist and became pro-princess (this is because of, not in spite of, her princessy daughter.) Eventually, we both arrived at the same conclusion: the concepts are symbiotic, not mutually exclusive. In a world of toxic masculinity, knee-jerk reactions against princess culture are passé. Blachor’s humorous guide helps parents surrender to the magic and find the right balance.” 
– Jerramy Fine, author of In Defense of the Princess: How Plastic Tiaras and Fairy Tale Dreams Can Inspire Strong, Smart Women

“Devorah Blachor deftly weaves personal stories with research and clever humor in The Feminist’s Guide to Raising a Little Princess. This funny and relatable book Is perfect for any imperfect parents who find things not going according to their parenting plans.”
– Julie Vick, Parenting Writer for The Washington Post ”On Parenting”, Parents Magazine

“I happen to be the mother of a boy, but I have many friends who are both feminists and parents of pink-obsessed girls. I wholeheartedly recommend they read Devorah Blachor’s The Feminist Guide to Raising a Little Princess. It’s hilarious, wise, relatable,  and insightful. I snort-laughed more than once while I read it. Before I even finished it, I started telling friends ‘You have to read this book – you’ll love it’.”
– Janine Annett, writer for The New York Times Well Family, The Huffington Post and Parent.Co

“I adored Devorah Blachor’s “The Feminist’s Guide to Raising a Little Princess.” It’s a rare book that combines “serious” science with hilarious “opposite of serious” stories that bring the point of the “serious” science home in a completely relatable way. For feminists with pink-and-princess-obsessed preschoolers who wonder where they went wrong, Blachor reassures you that it’s not you — it’s them! There’s hard wiring that makes your child the way she is. I wish this book had been around when my daughter was small. I’ll be sharing it with friends who are mystified by the little princesses in their own lives.”
– Page Barnes, Editor and Founder, The Haven

“I would call this book “adorable” if I didn’t think I’d get a punch in the nose.  “Genuinely funny”, “hilariously inventive”, and “truly insightful” work as well.  With raw honesty, cynical wit, and even scientific research, Devorah has let us into her life as a mom who loves her daughter even as she is mystified by who the hell her daughter is.  She exposes the real emotions as she competes for role-model dominance with Ariel, Cinderella, Elsa, and the whole gang of pink loving Disney princesses.  As a dad with a daughter who is constantly confusing me as well, I highly recommend this book.  Even the footnotes made me laugh out loud. Don’t miss them!“
– Gary Rudoren, Co-author of McSweeney’s Comedy By The Numbers and dad of twins.

“The struggle is real. As a fellow feminist and mother of a young daughter, I too have battled the Princess Industrial Complex, but have been beaten down by tiaras and tutus. This hilariously funny book is a guide to tackling pink-glitter-bomb-fluffiness and #winning. Best of all, Devorah Blachor’s common-sense talk teaches us how to counteract harmful messages while allowing our daughters to become their own people.”
– Fiona Taylor, Co-founder of The Belladonna
Devorah Blachor wrote the ‘Coming to America’ parenting column for the New York Times Motherlode and also writes for The Huffington Post, McSweeney’s, The Hairpin, Redbook, Mommyish, Good Housekeeping and The Rumpus, among other websites and magazines. Her children Cai and Mari provide endless material for her humor and essays.Chapter 1 What Is a Little Princess? My Life in Pink: The Science of Little Princesses Mari and I are pretty attached. Like, maybe to an unhealthy degree. Here’s why I think that happened: When my son, Cai, was a baby, a babysitter came a few mornings a week so I could work -part-​-time. Cai bonded with me, with his father, aka my husband, and also with the babysitter. She’s a fabulous young woman who introduced Cai to her group of fabulous friends, and they showered him with adulation and attention. Cai loved a lot of people, and a lot of people loved Cai. But when Mari came along, we had less money and by then I had no career to speak of less reason to return to work. For the first two years of Mari’s life, the largest portion of her days was spent with me and my boobs. I’m still not sure which of us she loved more. She seemed pretty happy anyway. Just before Mari turned two I had some freelancing opportunities, so we enrolled her in a -half-​-day preschool program. On her first day when the parents left, all the kids cried. On the second day, most of the kids cried. On the third day, some of the kids cried, and the following week, none of the kids cried anymore. Except for Mari. She still cried when I left her, every day, ripping my heart out with each inconsolable sob. Why was it so difficult for Mari? Maybe it was because the other toddlers lived near grandparents and relatives and were used to occasionally being without their mommies, while Mari had no such “extramaternal” experience. Or maybe it was because I was a crappy mother who’d raised an insecure emotional mess. It was probably one or the other. I considered pulling Mari out of her program and giving up the idea of returning to work. But in time she started to set-tle, though it was definitely slow going. Mari was that -kid—​-the one who’s always on the teacher’s lap in the photos they post on the preschool’s Facebook page. She needed lots of attention and love, and she got it there. For that I’m very grateful. She also started to get other ideas there. We’ll address those soon. Those were heady days. I’d drop Mari off at school and have four free hours to play around with. Man, was I elated, if elated means the same thing as insanely tired. Because Mari was also getting up very early to breastfeed. Did I forget to mention that? Mari was still breastfeeding and woke me every day at four a.m. to do it. It turned out she did like my boobs better than me. We weren’t doing it in public anymore. Mari breastfed before bedtime and naps and when she woke up, but she left my boobs alone for the rest of the day. If I had left it up to her she would have done it in public all the time, but at a certain -point—​-I can’t remember exactly when because of my -sleep-​-deprivation-​-addled -brain—​-I told her “Let’s wait until we get home” and sometime after that, “Let’s wait until bedtime.” It worked because she hadn’t yet passed the Psychotic Toddler Threshold.1 Here’s a question. When Mari was a baby, I breastfed her in public with no reservation, shame or feelings of parental inad-equacy. Once she hit toddlerhood, however, I felt uncomfortable whenever she wanted to nurse. Why is that? Why was my -naked-​-boob-​-exposure awareness heightened just because Mari was a few months older? Why did I feel judged and critiqued for comforting my toddler, but didn’t care when people disapproved of breastfeeding my baby in public? Discuss. Back to my exhaustion, which was as deep and massive as Crater Lake, but without the stunning views and the gift shop. Too tired to think about anything other than sleeping, I decided to finally wean. So there we were. Mari had just started preschool. I was trying to get her to give up the exact thing that comforted her most, and into this messed‑up vortex of toddler separation anxiety, parental guilt and extreme exhaustion, something new and strange came into our lives. Something we had never really thought about before. Something that would change our lives forever. It all started with Color Week. What’s Color Week? you say. It sounds just adorable. Color Week was that thing where all the kids in Mari’s preschool wore blue on Monday. On Tuesday, they wore yellow. On Wednesday it was red, on Thursday brown, and on Friday, all the kids dressed in either pink or -purple—​-toddler’s choice. Isn’t that a fun way to learn about colors? Isn’t that the sweetest thing ever? For the purposes of this book, I took it upon myself to research which part of the brain processes color differentiation. It’s the occipital lobe, as I’m sure you all know already. The occipital lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex. In other words, this is your brain on color:

Did you see that? No? Let me zoom in on that image for you. I don’t know if you can see what -happened—​-it’s very -subtle—​-but it turns out that by stimulating the part of Mari’s brain that recognizes color, a dormant predilection was aroused. Or implanted. It’s a -nature-​-versus-​-nurture -thing—​-I’m still trying to figure it out. All I know is that Mari was forever changed. Here’s a helpful graphic to help illustrate the change in Mari’s behavior.   Sad to say, as soon as Mari became aware of the concept of color she began suffering from yet another new syndrome. This one was called PFD, a phenomenon discovered by Diane N. Ruble, Leah E. Lurye and Kristina M. Zosuls of Princeton University, the school where middle initials are a big thing. PFD stands for “pink frilly dresses.” Here’s what these develop-mental psychology researchers wrote in the Princeton Report on Knowledge, which is also known by its street cred name, P‑ROK.2 As researchers in the field of developmental psychology who study gender development, we have noticed that a large proportion of girls pass through a stage when they virtually refuse to go out of the house unless they are wearing a dress, often pink and frilly. The intensity of these desires and the extremity with which they are expressed has piqued our research interest. One young mother reported that her 3‑-year-​-old daughter could only be convinced to wear something other than pink when she was physically shown that all of her pink clothing was in the laundry. What is the driving force behind this phenomenon, which we call PFD?3 I know what you’re thinking. That the mother whose daughter actually agreed to wear something that wasn’t pink is one lucky bitch. The researchers also point out that once children understand that there are two genders, identifying with their own gender becomes very important to them. Did I mention that it was around this time that we let Mari watch her first movie? I didn’t?4 I’m just really forgetful sometimes, as I’ll demonstrate again in about two seconds. There you have it. All the facts have been laid out with supporting evidence submitted to the court. Now I ask the jury: What was I supposed to do? Get a -two-​-year-​-old who had just started preschool to stop breastfeeding, stop biting,5 and stop wearing her new favorite color all at the same time? It sounds like a sequel to The Perfect Storm, only much, much -worse—​-kind of like the eternal winter storm that Queen Elsa set off in Arendelle. So when Mari started demanding to wear only pink and became obsessed with -princesses—​-a preference that generally occurs about five seconds after the pink -fixation—​-we kind of let it happen. “Choose your battles,” people sometimes say to parents, when what they really mean is “Please remove your child from the premises.” We chose not to have this particular battle. In fact, sometimes we even enabled our Little Princess to flourish, as you’ll soon see. And so a Little Princess was born. Her name is Mari. May God grant me the serenity to accept the color pink, the courage to not let my house become a shrine to pink and princesses, and the wisdom to know that pink is just a color, not a decision to never attend college in the hopes of marrying wealthy. Princess Studies 101: Do Brains Even Matter? Male and female brains are different. Duh! —​-Some guy in a bar So is it nature or nurture? In other words, are male and female brains different or are we more or less the same until we’re born and socialized into behaving according to what is expected and encouraged of our respective genders? Do some of us come out of the womb itching to design a hydraulic bridge, while others are predisposed to wearing puffy slippers with bear ears? How does this whole gender thing work? At the end of the nineteenth century, scientists discovered that the male brain was bigger than the female brain. Because it was the olden days when most women were walking wombs instead of scientists and explorers and newspaper criers, many assumed that size must indeed matter. There was a consensus that women were intellectually inferior to men. Which was probably news to Marie Curie, the physicist and chemist who discovered two elements and won the same amount of Nobel Prizes. Over time, scientific research bolstered the theory that women are dumber. For example, men consistently outperformed women on IQ tests. Until they didn’t. Think about it. With your gendered brain. The brain is mutable. It can and does -change—​-the changes and development begin weeks after conception. While genes (nature) determine how the brain develops in utero, the -environment—​-whether the mother is chronically stressed or smokes, for -example—​-affects the brain’s development as well. After birth, our life experiences play a role in shaping our brains. So if girls started to, say, I don’t know, maybe go to school or college or something for the first time, then it would certainly affect how their brains developed. Harvard, which was founded in 1636, claims to be the first institution of higher education in America. The first university to admit women, however, was Oberlin College two hundred years later. If the brain changes according to environment and women didn’t have access to basic education or higher education, then men outperforming women on IQ or other intelligence tests isn’t convincing proof of intellectual superiority. What you need to do is allow women that access and then let their brains and their daughters’ brains and so on through their granddaughters’ granddaughters’ brains develop and connect according to the new set of circumstances. And then test their IQs. Like in 2012. That’s when women outperformed men on IQ tests for the first time. The findings were authored by James Flynn, who studied IQ so much that he got something really cool named after him. (“The Flynn effect” refers to the overall increase in IQ scores since the 1930s.) The brain is so -fluid—​-and neuroscientists are only beginning to discover the depths of its -plasticity—​-that it’s still hard to draw convincing conclusions from any one study. Intellect aside, men and women do seem to be different from each other, and there has been a ton of research designed to discover brain differences between the genders. Our survey says that men and women generally have amygdalae that behave -differently—​-this is the part of the brain associated with stress, emotional -responses and sexual -arousal—​-because amygdala activity and responses to stimuli vary according to gender. And while men have larger brains, women might use their brains more efficiently. Women also have a higher proportion of gray matter and lower proportion of white matter than men. But what does all this mean? Also, does matter even matter? And here’s an even more confusing thought: What if we’ve been asking the wrong question all along? The faulty question is: What are the differences between the male and female brains? The assumption is that male and female brains are distinct. In 2015, Professor Daphna Joel of Tel Aviv University led a study that examined the brain scans of 1,400 people aged thirteen to -eighty-​-five. The study found that while some brain features are more common in one gender or the other, when you look at the whole study, very few -people—​-between 0 percent and 8 -percent—​-actually have a brain that is fully male or female. In other words, our brains are not one or the other. We’re all a little bit country, and a little bit rock ’n’ roll. Tell us about it, Professor Joel: Here we show that, although there are sex/​gender differences in brain and behavior, humans and human brains are comprised of unique “mosaics” of features, some more common in females compared with males, some more common in males compared with females, and some common in both females and males. Our results demonstrate that regardless of the cause of observed sex/​gender differences in brain and behavior (nature or nurture), human brains cannot be categorized into two distinct classes: male brain/​female brain.6 Does that blow your mind a little? Daphna Joel concludes that it’s meaningless to talk of a brain as being female or male. “Brains are -intersex—​-a mix of male and female characteristics,” she says. So -yes—​-Mari and the legions of -princess-​-obsessed little girls have been socialized to like pink. There’s no doubt about that one. But here’s a question whose answer I still don’t know: Like white and gray matter, does pink matter? If my daughter dresses in pink every day and surrounds herself with it and even begs to be bathed in -it—​-because, needless to say, someone invented pink bath bombs shaped like -cupcakes—​-will all this pink have an adverse effect on her? Unlike the secrets of the brain, which I’ll leave to Daphna Joel and her peers, I’m still trying to figure that one out. That’s kind of what this book is about.

Opposite of Serious Most Little Princesses start out as Little Princess Toddlers. If you’re concerned that your daughter might be a Little Princess Toddler and you wish to seek help before it’s too late, the first step is to have her take this helpful diagnostic quiz. Everything will soon become as clear as an Arendelle ice crystal. Quiz: Are You a Little Princess Toddler? 1. On most mornings you can be found: a. Snug in your parents’ bed with your fingers in your mother’s nose and your heel digging into your father’s neck. b. Removing your princess ­Pull-​­Ups so that you can pee on the floor. c. Waking up your family with a demand to bake cupcakes without delay. d. Taking off the tights that took your mother five minutes to get you into, because they’re not the correct shade of magenta.US

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