Vote for Tinkerbell

You all have probably figured out from earlier posts that I am not a fan of princesses (or pink or tea parties or shiny castles or any of it). In fact, I was the quintessential tomboy growing up (remind me never to use the word tomboy with Sky again—that led to an awkward and essentially irreparable exchange). So much so, that when my sister got married when I was just thirteen, I refused to be in her wedding because under no circumstances did I intend to wear a dress (unfortunately, the refusal of a 13 y.o. doesn’t go far with a bride bordering on bridezilla-ness and there are some unfortunate pictures to prove it).

Such adamant tomboyish-ness could only naturally lead to me giving birth to the girliest of girlie girls. Despite my best attempts to keep any and all princesses out of her life (which failed – see blog #1), one of Pink P’s first words was pink and the first book she tried to buy at the bookstore was, you guessed it, a book about a ballerina dressed as a princess.

Pink P’s world centers on pink, princesses, and castles, in that order. She only wants to buy pink things. Pink cookies, pink cupcakes, pink bricks, pink emery boards, pink tampons … Me: “Pink P. what do you want for Christmas?” Pink P: “Pink!!” Me: “Pink what?” Pink P: “Pink pink!” You get the idea.

She insists on dressing herself, and she will only wear pink dresses. Pink dresses! And as a result of her adamant pinkness, we have a lot of pink things at our house (even though Sky constantly warns me that I might be enabling a dangerous addiction).

With the pink come the princesses. You can probably guess my issue with princesses. They wear a lot of dresses, sing a lot of songs, and sit around all day waiting for a prince to rescue them. They have a lot of money that they don’t work for, and when they do work around the house, they leave most of the hard stuff up to the helpful forest animals. Nothing good can come from loving princesses (unless you are a prince in a fairy tale, and I doubt you would be reading my blog if you were).


That’s why I vote for Tinkerbell. First, she’s not really a princess (a distinction currently lost on Pink P). Second, she doesn’t wear pink. Third, and most importantly, she has a job. Tinkerbell tinkers. Sure she makes some poorly-conceived choices, but she never stops working to fix them. So, when you see my kid in a Tinkerbell shirt, don’t think I have lost the princess battle entirely.

(Like the picture says, it's from DisneyFairies.jp)