Thethrills of FRILLS

Some experts say princess play can be empowering for little girls.
By ALISON apROBERTS
SCRIPPS HOWARD
THE PRINCESS IS JUMPING ON HER BED, excited to receive commoners in her royal chamber. She plops down after a few moments to graciously answer questions about her reign, starting with, "What is it that princesses do, exactly?"
Monet Cook, who is 3, answers with a wordless demonstration. She stands tall, head up, eyes sparkling, and gently smooths the pale-blue tulle outer skirt of her gown before she executes a perfect twirl.
Monet is a proud citizen of Princess Nation, the growing number of little girls who dream of balls and tiaras and scoop up the smartly marketed accoutrements of royal life.
Many parents wonder at their daughters' frilly fantasy life in an era when girls are told they can grow up to be everything and anything, from firefighter and soldier to secretary of state.
What's an egalitarian-minded parent to do: welcome the princess to the playroom, or dethrone her? Will girls who play princess grow up thinking all they need are the right glass slippers and gown as they wait to be rescued by a dashing prince?
Keep guard up
Experts say parents don't have to raise the drawbridge to fend off the princess invasion. In fact, princess play can be empowering for little girls, especially if parents adopt a few strategies to guard against the damsels in distress who may try to sneak in.
Lenore Tate, Monet's faithful mother-in-waiting, has a doctorate in psychology, which may give her insights that make her happy to play along with her daughter's regal desires.
"I'm embracing it. First of all, they're little girls; I think it's OK for them to fantasize about all these things," she says. "I don't think it's going to turn our daughters into some kind of a dependent, helpless role. It's OK to be a lady and to wear a gown, as well as to play lacrosse or hockey."
It's also OK, Tate says, to be a black girl whose favorite princess is the very blond Cinderella.
"My girlfriends have somewhat of an issue with me -- we're African-American, and all these princesses are white, but Monet isn't seeing color," Tate says. "Children don't see color until almost the third grade."
Magic kingdom
Monet's bedroom in Natomas, Calif., is her own magic kingdom. The walls are painted "princess pink" and adorned with Disney princess stickers, and her closets are filled with enough gowns and crowns to outfit a dozen princesses.
"What's up with these princesses?" says Tate. "I don't know, but someone's making a lot of money."
Once upon a time, in 2001, Disney brought together its animated heroines and created a sisterhood of princesses. Among them are Ariel (aka the Little Mermaid), Jasmine, Pocahontas, Belle (a commoner made regal by her kindness to the Beast) and Mulan, along with the classic girls: Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.
Together, they sell billions of dollars' worth of products, from wallpaper to costumes and books.
Last Halloween, princesses took over the holiday: 3.8 million kids planned to dress up as princesses, outranking all other characters for kids (and more than double the number of witches, who came in second), according to the National Retail Federation. The number of princesses had more than doubled from the year before.
Happily ever after
For many generations, parents have lived happily ever after with a princess in the house.
"It's as pervasive as it was when little girls played Cleopatra in ancient Egypt," says Wendy Allen, a psychotherapist in the Santa Barbara, Calif., area who has taught human development at the graduate level.
Playing princess is developmentally appropriate for girls of about 3 or 4, she says. It's not usually a passive, rescue-me game but can actually help the very young to develop the ego and confidence they need to take care of themselves as they grow older.
"I think there is power in the princess games; there's a lot of 'Servant, get me this, Servant, get me that,'" Allen says. "I always tell parents not to worry about it."
Most grow up
Most children grow out of their tiaras, but there are some women who never abdicate.
"There are so many beautiful wives of rich men who live here, who don't have to work, who really have gotten a lot of good things handed to them because of how they look," Allen says. "That's great work if you can get it, but there are things you don't learn about without having to pull yourself up by your bootstraps."
Parents should recognize the dark side of the princess game, with its focus on beauty, says Susan Shapiro Barash, a professor of gender studies at Marymount Manhattan College in New York.
The problem with the princess game is that it can grow up into often ferocious and covert competition among women, says Barash, who wrote "Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth About Women and Rivalry" (St. Martin's Press, $22.95, 274 pages).
"Men compete for what they do, but women compete for who they are, and when you compete for who you are, then the competition is endless," Barash says. "Women need to learn how to compete in healthy ways."
Own spin on stories
Parents might consider adding their own happily empowered-ever-after epilogues to the princess stories their daughters love, says Mary-Lou Galician, head of media analysis and criticism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University in Tempe.
Galician says she doesn't think much of the Disney princesses, save one: "I do like Mulan; she empowers herself."
Consider, in contrast, Cinderella. She lives with an abusive stepmother and stepsisters, and she just makes nice. Such a passive heroine awaiting rescue by a prince is not much of a role model.
The antidote -- no fairy godmother required -- is talking with your kids. For Cinderella's tale, Galician suggests that parents could start a conversation with something along these lines: "If something happened to Mommy and Daddy, and you were being locked up in a cellar, what are some other things you could do, besides waiting around for a fairy godmother?"
In Monet's castle, Lenore Tate knows how to make the most of her time with the princess who rules her heart.
"While we're flipping the pages of her princess books, we'll talk about safety issues and self-esteem issues," she says. Snow White, for instance, could have avoided that poisoned apple.
"The seven dwarves were her best friends, and they said, 'Don't talk to strangers, and don't eat anything anyone gives you, and don't open the door.' She listened, but she didn't follow their advice and she got in trouble," Tate says.
She also reminds her daughter of the ways a princess needs to fulfill her destiny on her own before the royal wedding or coronation.
The message she returns to, time and again: "You won't be rescued; you will be equipped and empowered."