girl roles-playing princess, etc.

[Cataboo]

My half brother didn't want to raise a girly girl. She wasn't allowed to wear pink, wear dresses, play with barbie dolls, whatever. REsult was whatever she did have, she'd pretend was a baby doll - even if it was the cat. At a school charity sale when she was 5 or 6, she used her saved money to buy herself a barbie doll... which my half brother promptly trashed when she brought it home.

All she ever wanted to wear to school was dresses and pink.

I don't think he actually got anywhere with all his anti-girly-girl efforts...

My sister's daughter is in the disney princess phase and has been for the last 4 years or something. I think it was dora the explorer before that. I make sure to buy her 1 educational/something I think she'd like gift & 1 princess type gift for her birthday/christmas.

I have friends that did the no tv and no disney thing - that sorta works until the kids get into school and start going over to their friends house.

I vaguely remember playing dress up, possibly ocassionally playing princess - but nothing like what little girls seem to do now... but I was more of a tom boy.

[papaver]

Let kids be what they want to be.

[BalaRoja]

Let kids be what they want to be.

+10000

[Crankin]

Yes, there is research that proves that boys are hardwired to pick up that stick and pretend it's a gun.
A lot of good my no war toy policy did me. My son who is in the Marines played with those little green toy soldiers for hours, read hundreds of books on military history, and was obsessed with the history channel (still is). I didn't try to stop it and I am glad I didn't.

[smurfalicious]

There's a really interesting book called Pink Think - Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons that talks a lot about this. It's fun reading, you should check it out. You'll learn all about books on bad boys, Dream Date and Lysol as douche!

http://www.amazon.com/Pink-Think-Bec...3688182&sr=8-1

[Mr. Bloom]

I may not have always said this. But now, I'd say "let it be".

SilverDaughter was as prissy as any young girl...but with a streak of independence - she'd always wear two different colored socks, but each one matched her dress.

Then, as an early teen, she went through the "nearly goth" phase where everything she wore was black (except her bright red dog collar) This was a challenging time for me...

Then she found "her" look - which is anything but prissy, but very beautiful.

From a social standpoint, I think that the best thing that we can breed into our kids is versatility - an ability to adapt to the situation with comfort.

[papaver]

Then, as an early teen, she went through the "nearly goth" phase where everything she wore was black (except her bright red dog collar) This was a challenging time for me...

My father nearly had a heart attack when I came home with orange hair. They don't call it goth anymore. It's Emo.

[Crankin]

It is a developmental phase that parents can't control. I was a Barbie playing tomboy who loved playing army with all of the boys in the neighborhood in the 50's and 60's. I had an independent streak, too. I don't have daughters, but I think I might have tended to trying to steer a daughter away from girly-girl things when I was younger. However, I found out that you just can't control this stuff. I forbade toy guns, etc. and one kid is a Marine. I guess I never should have allowed those little green plastic soldiers he used to play with for hours, while the other one was reading or doing science experiments!

[OakLeaf]

My experience as a daughter (not a parent) is that parents can successfully isolate their kids from cultural influences if they isolate them from culture - few friends allowed, only infant TV (which had a lot fewer commercials than modern shows), no after school activities. I guess the present-day equivalent is home schooling.

My opinion is the social isolation and the lifelong impairment in the ability to have social relationships, just aren't worth it. Eventually an adult can teach herself how to dress and groom herself; learning how to interact with peers needs to happen in childhood, I think.

Oddly enough, my mom did raise me on the fantasy that someday I might marry Prince Charles, who's my same age.

[lph]

I wouldn't worry too much about the role-playing or the clothes - they probably mean something quite different to a small girl (maybe a dream of being magically elevated above everything mundane and boring) - but I would put a little effort into exploring her values and ideas, listening to them, and challenging them if necessary at the right age. And making ones own values clear, of course.

We tried to delay our son's exposure to realistic war toys, but never forbade them. So he's run around and "killed" people like every small boy, but I also made it very clear that I did not want him pointing anything gunlike at me, because it made me uncomfortable. Because people really do die that way, and I did not want to play at that particular game.

To each their own sensibilities. There are things I wouldn't let my son (or daughter if I had one) wear, but that would be because they didn't understand the message it gave to the rest of society.

[nj_likes]

My opinion is the social isolation and the lifelong impairment in the ability to have social relationships, just aren't worth it. Eventually an adult can teach herself how to dress and groom herself; learning how to interact with peers needs to happen in childhood, I think.

I have to agree with OakLeaf. My parents tried to shelter me a LOT when I was a child. We didn't get to watch TV, we didn't have a lot of toys (although, I did have a few Barbies....along with marbles and Transformers), and we played outside a lot. However, as much as my parents meant it for my own good, it made relating to my peers very difficult.

My current philosophy is "everything in moderation." That's how we plan on raising our daughter.