Wednesday, November 19, 2008

prince and princess...a double standard

i don't get how having a girl means it's okay to call her "princess", or "her majesty"? maybe it's because i don't have a daughter. if i were to call my boys, "prince", or his "royal highness", it would sound sarcastic and mean. if i were to label my child that way, it would mean he was a spoiled brat. on a boy, that is bad.

but with a girl, it seems that is okay, or even expected.

having a daughter automatically makes it okay to spoil your child? to profess their royalty?

now, i get some of it. i know that as women, we need to teach our girls that they are special. that they are daughters of God. that each of them are really princesses. by calling them that every day though, does that make it less important? does it take away from the times when they really do need to know?

what about our boys though? do they have less of a need to know where they come from?

i don't mean to offend, if you call your daughter by those names. i just wonder why the double standard? why can't i tell my son that they truly are a prince? it just sounds so gay. or condescending.

instead, we call our boys, "buddy", "champ", or "junior" or other assorted silly names. and if we hint in the least that he has his mommy wrapped around his finger, it's a bad thing. instead of a sweet thing when it's a little girl.

while i'm at it, what is with the "snakes and snails and puppy dog tails"? isn't that a bit freaky. or grotesque? but girls get "sugar and spice and everything nice". how is this fair? who made these up? why do we have to expect our child to conform to these limited gender descriptions?

what do you think? am i over thinking this? or am i just a bitter and jealous mother of boys?

5 comments:

big d said...

i'm with you. i hate snakes and don't care for dogs. (snails i could care less about) but i love sugar and spice... yet i'm a straight man!

while we're at it, why is it ok for a girl to be a diva where a boy, acting the same way, is loud, obnoxious, attention-starved, flamboyant, and annoying?

why can't boys be fun, creative, expressive and enthusiastic without it being adhd or spoiled or just a plain pain in the butt?

so go ahead, call little girls whatever you want, just don't dis little boys!

i guess i'm a little jealous and bitter too...

Katie said...

yeah, you guys have serious issues. just kidding. um, here's what i think. maybe guys naturally have better self esteem and don't need to be reminded of how awesome they are. notice that sometimes in conference there is a subtle undertone of telling guys to step it up and telling women how incredible they are doing? (or is that just me making stuff up) imagine if they flipped it. i think women would all go home and commit suicide and men would have even bigger egos than they already do. ok, but that is men & women. boys and girls - yeah, i'm not sure about that. i think it's weird that boys clothes have dogs and girls clothes have cats. weird! aren't there boy cats and girl dogs?
but yeah, i agree about the boys stereotype being off - cause girls are NOT that nice. and i feel like if someone says they have all boys - they get pity looks and if they have all girls - not so much. what gives?

Anonymous said...

hmm, I never really thought about it. But now that you mention it, it's true. I call my girls princess sometimes (not often) I call my sons bubby and tank. And I think one time I brought up the 'you are a prince/princess' to them at FHE and my boys just kind of crinkled their noses like "eww mom" Maybe boys are just more self assured? But I don't think all girls have low self-esteem either. Hmm, now I'll be thinking about this.

The black sheep A.K.A Pandora said...

I just call the little ones crib lizards and the big ones curtin crawlers.....is that wrong?

One Crazy Family said...

I don't call my girls princess they would not appreciate it at all. especially when one has a little blonde princess pressed against the glass on a soccer field taking the ball away.
I agree with the double standard and never understood why we do that, pink rooms, sparkles and princess while little boys are cars trucks trains and baseball.
Another mystery of the world.