Pink and Purple Princess

Lexa is really into the colors pink and purple and princesses.Most of her clothing and stuff is pink and/or purple. She likes to dress up as a princess, likes wearing crowns and jewelry, and plays with princess dolls. She names all her toys princess. She has Princess Kitty, Princess Hop Hop, Princess Monkey, Princess Hug a Bear. The bouncy rocking horse is now named Princess Yee-haw. Her favorite movie is The Princess Bride. She wanted a princess birthday party, and she picked out a princess dress for her Halloween costume. Her interest in princesses started when she was two and her grandparents gave her some princess stickers. At that time to her a woman in a fancy dress was a princess. She saw me get dressed up one time, and she said, "Mommy, you're a princess!" She likes the Disney princesses and calling them by their names even though she hasn't seen all the movies. She likes any and all princesses though. 

She really gravitated towards falling in love with princesses and all this girliness on her own. We never really called her a princess, over emphasized her looks, or pushed her towards it, I don't think. I'm somewhat conflicted about it because I want her to have strong female role models and find self worth and value in more than just beauty. This princess culture for little girls really does seem to emphasize beauty to me. I really hate how they sexy up the pictures of the Disney princesses. But then I vaguely remember something from child development psychology classes about children going through a gender identification phase where they over do the gender stuff for awhile as they form their identities as boys or girls.

I don't discourage her from dressing up and playing princess all the time because she's so happy and having fun. I don't want her to only hear that she is pretty all the time though.  I make a point to tell her she's smart, kind, creative, interesting AND beautiful.