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Wait, don’t go, I know your instant reaction to the title of this post is one of shock and horror at the slander towards a childhood hero but bear with me here… (it is my first go at this after all).
Like most of my anecdotes, it all started when Betsy said…
‘Mummy, why don’t you have a prince charming? Is it because you have no makeup on and aren’t pretty? Is it because you don’t have little birds to tidy our house so it’s ALWAYS a mess?’
Oh Betsy. Ohhhhhhhh Betsy. Where do I even start, my little
SelfishMother.com
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bundle of arseholeness?
When I was little I loved nothing more than sitting down and watching one of those iconic 90’s Disney films. You know the ones; Aladdin, Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast, the kind of films that give you that warm fuzzy feeling inside and make you feel like anything is possible.
Since having children of my own we have re-watched them together (usually 7 times a day – one after another – in a bid to keep the kids occupied on a hungover Sunday morning). Post movie watching marathon, Betsy and George from
SelfishMother.com
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quite an early age began to re-enact said Disney fairy tales. Now firstly I became massively aware that Snow White and her murderous step-mother was probably not one of the life lessons I should be teaching my then 2 and 3 year old children, but a mother is only as good as her Sky Digital movie package right?! Secondly it became seemingly clear that by showing my children these imaginative, vibrant, burst-in-to-song classics that they were being lead in to a false sense of fucking security about what love, marriage and self-worth really
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mean.
Betsy and George would regularly put on their princess dresses and prance around the room, vowing to wait for their Prince Charming to gallop in on his white horse and whisk them away to live in a castle and live happily ever after. In reality…the best I’d had up to that point was someone whisking me to Nando’s in his yellow Nissan Micra.
Love story aside, when we think about what the princesses in most of these fairy tales represent – what is the first thing we see? They are all beautiful. Now beauty isn’t a crime but do we really
SelfishMother.com
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want our children to grow up and think you have to be aesthetically beautiful with long hair and pretty dresses to get a man? More to the point, do we want our children to grow up thinking that they need a man? To quote the pussycat dolls ”I don’t need a man to make it happen”.
It’s time to change the narrative and raise our children to be strong and open minded:
– to challenge stereotypes and outdated misogynist views.
– that a ’good woman’ needs to cook, clean and be up with the fucking birds.
– that boys have to dress up
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as Iron Man and girls have to look like Elsa (I mean she’s bad ass but c’mon nobody has hair that perfect).
Let’s encourage our children to be who and what they want to be not who and what society tells them to be.
I am by no means an expert, but like every other Instagram-loving, social-media-using parent I am an advocate of the inspirational Pinterest quote so lets tell our children…Be kind, be fierce, be brave, be everything you want to be but ALWAYS be yourself.
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Vanessa Rowland - 2 Nov 18
Wait, don’t go, I know your instant reaction to the title of this post is one of shock and horror at the slander towards a childhood hero but bear with me here… (it is my first go at this after all).
Like most of my anecdotes, it all started when Betsy said…
‘Mummy, why don’t you have a prince charming? Is it because you have no makeup on and aren’t pretty? Is it because you don’t have little birds to tidy our house so it’s ALWAYS a mess?’
Oh Betsy. Ohhhhhhhh Betsy. Where do I even start, my little bundle of arseholeness?
When I was little I loved nothing more than sitting down and watching one of those iconic 90’s Disney films. You know the ones; Aladdin, Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast, the kind of films that give you that warm fuzzy feeling inside and make you feel like anything is possible.
Since having children of my own we have re-watched them together (usually 7 times a day – one after another – in a bid to keep the kids occupied on a hungover Sunday morning). Post movie watching marathon, Betsy and George from quite an early age began to re-enact said Disney fairy tales. Now firstly I became massively aware that Snow White and her murderous step-mother was probably not one of the life lessons I should be teaching my then 2 and 3 year old children, but a mother is only as good as her Sky Digital movie package right?! Secondly it became seemingly clear that by showing my children these imaginative, vibrant, burst-in-to-song classics that they were being lead in to a false sense of fucking security about what love, marriage and self-worth really mean.
Betsy and George would regularly put on their princess dresses and prance around the room, vowing to wait for their Prince Charming to gallop in on his white horse and whisk them away to live in a castle and live happily ever after. In reality…the best I’d had up to that point was someone whisking me to Nando’s in his yellow Nissan Micra.
Love story aside, when we think about what the princesses in most of these fairy tales represent – what is the first thing we see? They are all beautiful. Now beauty isn’t a crime but do we really want our children to grow up and think you have to be aesthetically beautiful with long hair and pretty dresses to get a man? More to the point, do we want our children to grow up thinking that they need a man? To quote the pussycat dolls “I don’t need a man to make it happen”.
It’s time to change the narrative and raise our children to be strong and open minded:
– to challenge stereotypes and outdated misogynist views.
– that a ‘good woman’ needs to cook, clean and be up with the fucking birds.
– that boys have to dress up as Iron Man and girls have to look like Elsa (I mean she’s bad ass but c’mon nobody has hair that perfect).
Let’s encourage our children to be who and what they want to be not who and what society tells them to be.
I am by no means an expert, but like every other Instagram-loving, social-media-using parent I am an advocate of the inspirational Pinterest quote so lets tell our children…Be kind, be fierce, be brave, be everything you want to be but ALWAYS be yourself.
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