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Agreed. We didn't do any of that. By the time they got old enough to read this stuff, I really discouraged the clothes with the logos festooned on them, e.g. Nike, Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger, etc. I didn't totally disallow it, but we did talk about it.
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Never heard that one, and I thought I'd heard them all. (Worked in a pediatric office and we had teens as patients.)
"Juicy" was (is?) a brand name that frequently adorned the rears of sweatpants/loungepants a number of years ago.
I remember my mother calling my lazy, younger sister Miss Priss - "Look Miss Priss, you got seconds to get your A** out the bed before I take some color off ya hide with the belt." Yeah, no princesses were allowed in my mothers house.
It's only a term of endearment and it won't drag them back to the 50s. I called my daughter a princess and she was a tomboy and now a grown educated woman.
It's silly and I would LIKE to think it is ultimately harmless, but for at least some, it probably isn't.
My ex used to call his step daughter "princess". One day she called me and asked me if I thought he loved her, because despite his propensity for using ridiculous terms of "endearment", he certainly didn't BEHAVE as if he thought she was worth spit.
She seems of at least slightly above average intelligence to me, yet she never did well in school and she ended up working for Hooters for a long time before she finally got a job as a pharmaceutical rep. And we all know what skills pharmaceutical reps need - pretty much the same qualifications as a Hooters girl.
I think she is smart enough to have done many things less dependent on her looks and charm, but since that is all my ex ever praised her for, and since he didn't give half a hoot about her grades, and because his attitude towards her left her so off-balance and insecure that she had to call ME (the ex-wife of her step dad that she had never actually met in person but knew much of due to my son's influence), she ended up relying on the only things he ever praised her for - looks and compliance.
She is a super nice person and, as I said, way smarter than other people, including my son, seem to give her credit for (I have since met her as an adult, I'm no dummy myself, and she certainly seems intelligent to me).
I don't think the use of diminutive terms such as "princess" are a good thing for little kids, especially when you carry through on that front, only praising appearance and "charming" or "cute" behavior, treating a young girl like a baby, etc etc etc, which is what happened to this person who is now a young woman who had a lot of potential to be and do far more. I know when she was in high school, she wanted to be a doctor - but she never achieved the grades, and I do not believe that was because she wasn't capable. It's because she was socialized to think she was a helpless, useless individual whose sole redeeming feature was all about the way she looks.
And yes, her mother had a lot to do with it as well. We're talking someone who is so status-conscious she goes around to every open house in the neighborhood to spy on people so she can make sure she has more-better stuff than they do.
We never call the new granddaughter that. To me, it conjures up Honey Boo Boo.
Funnily enough, my DILs mother, who I’ve only met once, feels the same way, and so does her old school Spanish grandmother.
My DIL is an educated woman. She makes my son tow the line. We wouldn’t want anything less for their daughter.
The last Princess on the radar, Prince Harry’s wife, was an accomplished person before she met him.
"Juicy" was (is?) a brand name that frequently adorned the rears of sweatpants/loungepants a number of years ago.
Interesting. I missed that one! Of course, at the office, we didn't use nicknames like that unless the kid requested it. And I never heard that from my girls.
It's silly and I would LIKE to think it is ultimately harmless, but for at least some, it probably isn't.
My ex used to call his step daughter "princess". One day she called me and asked me if I thought he loved her, because despite his propensity for using ridiculous terms of "endearment", he certainly didn't BEHAVE as if he thought she was worth spit.
She seems of at least slightly above average intelligence to me, yet she never did well in school and she ended up working for Hooters for a long time before she finally got a job as a pharmaceutical rep. And we all know what skills pharmaceutical reps need - pretty much the same qualifications as a Hooters girl.
I think she is smart enough to have done many things less dependent on her looks and charm, but since that is all my ex ever praised her for, and since he didn't give half a hoot about her grades, and because his attitude towards her left her so off-balance and insecure that she had to call ME (the ex-wife of her step dad that she had never actually met in person but knew much of due to my son's influence), she ended up relying on the only things he ever praised her for - looks and compliance.
She is a super nice person and, as I said, way smarter than other people, including my son, seem to give her credit for (I have since met her as an adult, I'm no dummy myself, and she certainly seems intelligent to me).
I don't think the use of diminutive terms such as "princess" are a good thing for little kids, especially when you carry through on that front, only praising appearance and "charming" or "cute" behavior, treating a young girl like a baby, etc etc etc, which is what happened to this person who is now a young woman who had a lot of potential to be and do far more.
I know when she was in high school, she wanted to be a doctor - but she never achieved the grades, and I do not believe that was because she wasn't capable. It's because she was socialized to think she was a helpless, useless individual whose sole redeeming feature was all about the way she looks.
And yes, her mother had a lot to do with it as well. We're talking someone who is so status-conscious she goes around to every open house in the neighborhood to spy on people so she can make sure she has more-better stuff than they do.
Excellent post. Like many things, if it is used in moderation, calling a girl Princess is fine, IMHO, it is only when young girls are only praised for the good looks and not for other traits or are treated like a princess 100% of the time it can cause problems.
As a retired teacher, I have seen a few spoiled rotten princesses in my day. What is especially concerning are the parents that dress their kindergarten age girls in dress shoes, white tights, and expensive, fancy party dresses every day for school and then tell the teacher and staff that their daughter is not allowed to get dirty, or do art projects, or play outside at recess, or take gym or do other parts of the kindergarten curriculum. Yes, that can be a real problem but it usually gets worked out.
I've even had princesses, when asked to do typical expected school tasks, like pick up the paper/crayon/trash that they dropped/threw on the floor, tell me "My mother told me that princesses NEVER have to do any work. So someone else has to pick it up, like you."
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