Startribune.com’s Chris Havens finds himself surrounded by Princess mania. He’s not sure he likes it.

My 4-year-old daughter stated matter-of-factly at the table that her name was, once again, Livia.

Funny, I thought that’s what my wife and I named her in the first place.

But over the last six or nine months, our oldest has requested we call her, in no particular order: Aurora, Snow White, Cinderella and Mulan. Not all at one time, although she liked two-name combinations every now and again. There was a brief Pocahontas period.

C’mon, I know you know those names. Research says 95 percent of moms with kids recognize them. Dads? Yeah, you know ‘em, too.

We first got introduced to them two years ago, when our daughter got a cute pink cell phone from a great-grandma. That was all the exposure she needed to get swept up in the world of Disney Princesses. It’s like there’s a code among 3- to 4-year-olds that says they must covet all things Princesses (all but one girl in our daughter’s preschool class dressed up as a Princess on Halloween). Maybe it’s a potion Disney marketers put into that special Princess shade of pink.

If you have a young daughter who is unaware of the Princess phenomenon, I admire your ability to shield her from the machine that is flooding this world with pink and tulle, singing syrupy messages about dreams and love.

From the folks at Disney: “For a little girl, the desire to feel special is more powerful than a magic wand. She dreams of a place where clothes are spun of silk and gold, where balls are held in her honor and where princes fall in love at first sight. It is a world Disney has created - full of fantasy and romance - where a girl can feel as special as a Princess. Disney Princess - where dreams begin.”

Isn’t that warm and fuzzy?

It sure is profitable as hell: more than $3 billion in worldwide sales in 2006, up from the paltry couple-hundred-million in 2001. And there are thousands of products to choose from besides DVDs and dolls.

(The original Princess was Snow White. She hit the big screen in 1937 and enjoyed a rebirth in the late 1990s as other characters joined her to create the insidious gang that claimed its turf in mass pop kid culture in the early ‘00s. Most are white women, although Jasmine, Pocahontas and Mulan were added and give some diversity. In 2009, Disney will introduce its first black princess, Maddy, in “The Frog Princess.”)

It’s inescapable, and it makes me queasy. I’m not arguing about the value or detriment of the Princess message. Heck, I can put aside my distaste for pink. What’s hard to handle is the pervasiveness of the brand. Grocery store, toy store, drug store - even the hardware store - I guarantee most will have some Princess product.

I submit to you what could be a plausible bedtime-to-lunchtime routine:

After soaking in a bath with Princess bubbles, brush teeth with Princess toothpaste on a Princess toothbrush. Rinse with a Princess Dixie cup. Get into princess pajamas, read a Princess book and crawl under Princess covers. Turn off the talking Princess lamp. Turn on the Princess nightlight.

Wake up and eat Princess cereal in a Princess bowl, sip OJ from a plastic princess cup. Put on Princess underwear - is it Cinderella or Snow White today? - and a Princess undershirt. A princess sweatsuit would be comfortable for play. And don’t forget the Princess shoes. Put some princess tunes on the stereo. Sit on the Princess chair. Dress and undress the Princess dolls again. Bounce the Princess ball. Munch on Princess fruit snacks.

That’s a lot of Princesses. I’m wracking my brain to think of a comparable line of toys with that much reach.

Look, we’re guilty of buying into some of it. I’ve picked up Princess books and put together a Princess scooter. We’ve thrown a Princess birthday party.

But we can control how much Princess we let into our lives. We can’t control outside pressures, such as relatives, friends and other little girls. It’s not long before the collection of Princess things grows exponentially from holidays and birthdays.

But it seems like the phase is coming to an end.

I guess that means we’ll have to prepare for the next big obsession.

Then what will our daughter want to be called?

I’m still partial to Livia.

(For an interesting and thorough exploration of a feminist trying to understand the Princesses, check out Peggy Orenstein’s article, “Whats wrong with Cinderella?” in the Dec. 24, 2006, issue of the New York Times magazine.)

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 8:26 am and is filed under Guest Bloggers, Main, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.