Parents take heed: “Cinderella Ate My Daughter”

The book Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein is a provocative, sometimes witty, examination of the relatively recent and fast rise of the “girlie girl” culture in America.  The book raises some probing questions regarding the impact of this pervasive shift on our young daughters.

A friend of mine who has two girls close in age to my own daughters recommended it and let me borrow her copy. I was a little afraid of what I might read as we’re pretty big Disney fans at our house, and my girls have certainly embraced the Princess tales and accompanying merchandise hook, line, and glass slipper.

I know many women have long mocked the stories for portraying life’s main goal as finding true love and living “happily ever after”.   But after reading this book, I have to say that would be the least of our problems.  I actually DO believe that one of the keys to happiness for ALL people, regardless of gender, is to find that one person you can love who understands and loves you back, with whom you can share your life.  I don’t think that principle is necessarily wrong, even if the “happily ever after” might look a little different in reality.  What IS problematic is that the Disney Princess stories all portray “love” in such a superficial and one-sided way in which the man holds all the cards. The message: be pretty and woo a man without really knowing him (Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel – she can’t even use her voice, but is expected to capture his heart, Belle – falls in love with her kidnapper who is borderline abusive, or in the case of Sleeping Beauty – without even being conscious!)  For all we know, these “princes” could be royal jerks, but there is never any back story or character development showing what would be appealing about these men – their title and handsomeness is enough to pass muster with our indiscriminate princesses-to-be.

But I think even more damaging than those simple stories is the marketing frenzy around Princess and girl-centric (in a stereotypical way) merchandise – which the author points out didn’t really even happen until the new millennium.  It makes a hard to ignore connection for impressionable minds between being pretty and being a girl. This connection extends beyond the already limiting perfect hour-glass figure and long flowing hair, but also equates to fancy clothes, jewelry, make-up, tiaras, and converting everything that you own into something pink and glitter-or-sequin-covered.  It’s the ever-present message that “I consume, therefore I am [a girl].”  Consuming is the way to express your femininity, just look at Sex in the City, Gossip Girl, the Shopaholic book series, the list goes on. Made me wonder what messages I’m unintentionally conveying with my behavior as a grown woman.

Case in point: we’ve been suckered into buying more princess dress-up outfits, vanities, and play castles than I care to admit.

Orenstein even takes aim at the relatively wholesome American Girl brand. While preaching down-to-earth individuality from a simpler time, this authentic and wholesome experience is apparently only for affluent girls, as they market their $100 dolls and pricey outfits, accessories, and $30 doll salon visits (yes, their hair dos cost more than my husband’s!).

According to the book, the once feminist “Girl Power” was co-opted by marketers to sell more stuff, not to empower girls.  And it was a slippery slope from the rise of the princesses to Bratz and Moxie Girls, and then to belly shirts for six-year-olds, hot pants for 12-year-olds, and suggestive dancing a la Glee and Gaga for all ages (thank you YouTube!)  That said, American Girl might be elitist, but they’re still pretty preferable to some of the other options out there, which likely explains their explosive sales growth despite (or maybe because of?) their sky-high price tag.

The book is certainly meant to create debate and can get a bit extreme in some of its views – as a person who did take a few Women’s Studies courses in college, the feminist tone sounded familiar and can at times be a bit righteous. BUT, I also really appreciated the way the author backed up her strong opinions with plenty of supporting facts and studies done by psychologists, child development experts, as well as interviews and ethnographies of sorts that she conducted herself.

I definitely recommend checking this out if you’ve ever had that nagging feeling that something’s not right when five-year-old girls are getting manicures at the spa, shows like Toddlers and Tiaras are hits, and kid idols like Miley Cyrus make the switch from child star to “serious actor/musician” by taking off her clothes for Vanity Fair.

Sunday dinner recipe: garlicky chicken

Just tried a new and simple chicken recipe from In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite a cookbook written by Melissa Clark. You might recall, the first recipe I tried from her cookbook was a sweet treat that was quite tasty. My second undertaking from the book is a recipe called “Not-my-Grandma’s Chicken with Lemon, Garlic, and Oregano” and is basically baked drumsticks (which my family loves) basted with a scrumptious tangy garlic lemon and oregano paste.
Dish was a big success and couldn’t be easier, great served over rice or with buttered noodles, greens on the side (we had peas with mint butter, not-so-fancy since I picked it up from the frozen aisle at Trader Joe’s!).

The key is to broil the drumsticks first a bit before slathering on the lemon-garlic paste, otherwise the garlic will burn and become blackened and bitter. Here’s what it looks like when you get started (I doubled the recipe, as it was written to serve two and we have four hungry mouths in this house):

The best part of this dish is first, the nice moist meat and second, the pan juices that come about after the roasting of the chicken, light and yummy, and very fragrant… when I was cooking it my husband kept hunting around the kitchen asking when it was time to eat.

Sorry I don’t have a picture of the finished product, sadly, my mobile phone camera didn’t do it justice, and I had my hands full so didn’t bother to get DSLR out. Suffice to say, the outside was crispy brown and when I served it over the jasmine rice with the pan juices and browned mixture scooped over, it was a hit. My littlest ate two drumsticks, the five-year-old three, and my husband FIVE. The kicker is that the whole thing took less than an hour and required mainly ingredients you already have around. As a good friend of mine is known to say “winner, winner, chicken dinner” – indeed.

Some random stuff I’m into right now

Just got back from a work trip to visit a media partner and it really got me thinking…  we were talking about young moms today and what they’re into, what gets them excited enough to get them to take time away from their harried schedules and sit down and read, view, or share something?

I concluded that shared life stage or no, shared generation or no, we cannot be easily generalized!  Case in point, I’ve probably got a lot of random media and consumption habits that would make no sense to a marketer if they were using it to piece together who I was and what motivated me, especially since some may or may not fit my life stage or generational expectations.  Below are a few of the things I’m into at the moment. Wonder how many other Gen X moms are into the same, and what that says about me, or us as a cohort?

• Listening to: Coming Home – Diddy feat. Skylar Grey .  Just download it and put it on repeat, you can thank me later. The lyrics are interesting referencing his life and inner conflicts, and I esp love Grey’s vocals and the piano.
• Watching: Men of a Certain Age – on TNT, starring Ray Romano.  Not “everyone” loves Raymond.  I thought the show was sort of inane and grating.  But, after glowing reviews of the show when it first came out, I gave it a try and was hooked.  Though it’s basically a drama-edy about middle-aged men, the three characters are so well-written and the actors have such great chemistry (I’ve always been a Scott Bakula fan anyway) that I can totally relate and empathize with the characters.  Season’s over, but you can watch full episodes on the TNT show site.
• Reading: anything by Emily Giffin or Elizabeth Strout.  Very different types of writers, but I’ve read two books by each and definitely recommend. Also, two non-fiction books that were pretty provocative and inspiring –  The Power of Half: One Families Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back and The Soul of Money: Reclaiming the Wealth of our Inner Resources.
• Perusing: InStyle, ELLE, Traditional Home, Parents magazines, various lifestyle and fashion blogs, and fashion sites editorials (e.g., Net-a-Porter or Shopbop have good ones).
• Eating: Xochitl chips (the best out there) with homemade guacam-ole and salsa; popcorn, either homemade with truffle butter and sea salt or Orville Redenbacher’s microwave bags in the Lime + Salt flavor, if only they weren’t mini bags.  Or maybe that’s a good thing.
• Cooking: recipes from Ina Garten, epicurious.com, or Real Food magazine from local grocer Lunds & Byerly’s (very high quality recipes that work!)

Sweet dreams, or not.

Our older daughter’s fifth birthday is approaching next weekend and I was just reflecting on the early months and years and how quickly it’s all gone by.  Being a parent to a baby and toddler warps time; some of the days seemed to last forever, but then the months and years in aggregate sort of just whizzed by.

With our younger daughter at 2 1/2 years old now, life is definitely getting easier. But last night we had a game of what I call musical beds, where everyone was up and out in the wee hours running around, tossing and turning, and waking each other up.  What, in the name of all that is holy, is going on??  I thought sleep training was a thing of the past, but with our littlest moving out of her crib it looks like it might be time to revisit.  If some of you all are facing sleepless nights brought on by little ones, you might check out the advice below:

Read: Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Weissbluth.  Even if you don’t believe in “sleep training”, or decide not to try it, the book is still worth a read. The most surprising, but obvious, thing I learned from the book was how much the lack of sleep impacts the child and parents (i.e., it’s hard enough being a parent, let alone a chronically tired one with a chronically tired/fussy baby). For me, it was a boon because it helped me identify when I would have the best odds of success with getting my babies down for a nap/bedtime and helped me link my babies’ behavior to how much sleep they were getting and when they were getting it.  I must caveat by saying I think my two were pretty “textbook” in that sense though and not every friend I know who has tried this has found it to work as well as I did.  But really, is there anything to lose from at least checking it out? If you’re not getting much sleep in your house, I think not, except the $10 for the book, and if you want you can borrow it from me, just shoot me an email.  Now, the trick is, how to keep these older kids in bed… the crib can no longer contain them. So, if you all have ideas, I welcome them.  I seem to recall having a stage like this with our older kid, but think we just waited out the “phase”. Not sure I have it in me for another round!

Sleep-in if you need it: My husband and I regularly alternate on the weekends who will get up early with the kids Saturday and Sunday.  This practice started after our second baby arrived, when it became more difficult for one or both of us to catch up on sleep.  Knowing you can sleep in at least one morning a week helps you power through some of the seemingly endless sleep-deprived days!  We still do it now, even though the kids aren’t babies, because we’re night owls and definitely can use the extra catch-up sleep.  After the night we just had, I’m already fantasizing about sleeping in ’til 10AM this weekend… ahh, the hedonism.   Here’s hoping for sweet, uninterrupted, dreams tonight!