It will be a night for princesses

By SUE HUTCHISON

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

Tonight I will be keeping a tally of how many 3-foot-tall princesses come to the door begging for candy. I’ve learned to spot most of the Disney royalty, ranging from the basic Cinderella to Aladdin’s carpet-riding Jasmine to the little mermaid princess, Ariel. (Though Ariel rarely wears her fish tail for Halloween and other formal functions.)

I have been fascinated with the princess phenomenon ever since my nieces were sucked into it as toddlers. Never mind that they are living in a world full of soccer-playing girls, mothers who earn the household income and the expectation that they can be whatever they want when they grow up. For some reason, each of the four of them went through a phase of insisting on wearing pink tulle and carrying a wand or scepter.

How did we get here?

Are girls — even those with feminist mothers, aunts and grandmothers — simply hard-wired to want to be princesses for a while? Is it a predictable phase, like the Terrible Twos? Or like a low-grade flu?

Unlike quite a few mothers I know who are dismayed by their daughters’ princess-worship, I don’t think it’s a sign of cultural oppression. But I’m also one of those people who didn’t get too freaked out about Barbie-worship, either. Hey, I loved Barbie. I loved running her life, cutting her hair and ripping her head off, literally, when I was irritated.

It never once occurred to me that I should look like her or play like her. I knew I would never have my own beach van, and I was OK with that.

I went through a royalty-wish phase as well, though my despot of choice was the Wicked Queen from “Snow White.” Maybe that was my unconscious interpretation of the Betty Friedan-fueled revolution that was going on when I was a preschooler in the ’60s; I wanted control.

Princess mania

When I’ve questioned the 5- and 6-year-old girls in my life about their princess mania, I have been reassured that they are not taking it nearly as seriously as the toy manufacturers are. They like the princesses, but they’re not wrapped up with a rescue fantasy that involves passivity and helplessness. They just want a cool castle, lots of dresses and servants. (Who doesn’t?)

When my youngest niece, Summer, was 5, she was obsessed with the Disney princesses that are marketed as a set. I asked her, warily, if she was waiting for her prince to ride away with her on his white horse. She looked at me as though I had a head injury.

“What prince?” she asked. She patiently explained to me that she would live in a castle and cast magic spells. Clearly, she was in it for the power and the real estate.

This Halloween I’ll be handing out candy at a friend’s house when I conduct my princess tally. He lives in one of those neighborhoods that’s besieged with trick-or-treaters, so I should have a pretty good sample. I’m looking forward to seeing the little princesses, especially since I’m confident that it’s nothing more than a sweet rite of passage.

Two of my nieces have long since passed through their princess phase to become a swim-team star who talks about running a company some day and an orange-belt in jujitsu who can throw down with the boys.

I think Summer, who is now 7, also is about to graduate from her reign as a pink princess. When I asked her what she was going to be this Halloween she told me, “A cowgirl, riding horses and taming cows.” So there ya go. Time to pack up the wand and crown and start running the ranch.

No harm done.

X Sue Hutchison is a columnist for the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.