I haven't heard from the kid yet that she wants to be a princess, but according to the child development specialists at Disney Consumer Products, it's only a matter of time.
The Disney Princess line seems to be warping the fragile little minds of kids as young as 18 months, to the tune of $3 billion a year. The NY Times' Jodi Kantor goes to the Disney Store so you don't have to:
Younger girls, meanwhile, are watching their movies on special pink-and-blue Cinderella television and DVD players, dressing their dogs in Cinderella costumes and eating breakfast made in a waffle iron that stamps her image into the batter.Love the Riches, Lose the Rags [nyt]"You want to feel like a princess every moment of every day," Ms. Beech said, "even if you're riding a bike or kicking a soccer ball." It is even possible, as one mother at the Disney store confessed, to go to the bathroom the Cinderella way. "There's Drizella and there's Anastasia," her recently toilet-trained daughter remarks when she flushes.
Ok, this is where I draw the line. There is no way in hell that my daughter will get Cinderella anything--no matter how much she may one day scream for it.
Don't forget Cinderella's Princess Court at the Manhattan World of Disney Store!
[I think that's where most of this reporting was done, actually. -ed.]
Well, you didn't expect me to actually READ the article, did you? ;)
The lousy thing is, if we have a daughter I know her mom is going to plaster this stuff all over the place. Kid won't even have a prayer of getting away.