Purim Princessification

It almost seems inevitable....the Princessification of our little girls. I have read plenty of articles, both academic and opinion pieces, about the societal (and parental) tendency to encourage girls to buy into the princess myth and archetype...and of course also that of the knight in shining armor. I totally agree, that there are MUCH more positive role models...Society at large does not seem to concur. None the less, we try not to buy Maya princess stuff....or refer to her as princess, ect...however, while we were in Morocco we bought Maya lost of DVDs for the long car rides. I always choose either animal cartoons, films with strong females, or rather neutral stuff like Maya the Bee....nonetheless, she spied, fell in love with and demanded "Barbie: Diamond Castle"...I acquiesced, you know what they say about forbidden fruit. And thus began our slippery slope!

Luckily, Maya does not yet get or desire the whole barbie thing, and is quite happy with her lovely cloth dolls...and we don't do big birthday parties, so I'm not terribly concerned about her receiving a bunch of barbie and Disney princess stuff, but it is out there, lurking around the bend. Also, a lot of her friends parents do not subscribe to my anti-princess philosophy, and in fact are trying to princessify as much as humanly possible...oh well, life will always present lots of options and paths, and to avoid or hide from the bounty of those choices is simply prolonging the inevitable.

So, it was time to celebrate Purim, and after looking all weekend I still could not find Maya's costume (an adorable ladybug she has used for 3 years now) in the still packed boxes...so Maya borrowed a costume from our friends before we all went to a Purim party. Here is an adorable cheerleader and 2 fairy princesses!