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Careers For A Princess

April 28, 2011 By

drawing copyright everlove

It feels like a spring flood – the omnipresent coverage of Friday’s wedding of Prince William and Kate (soon to be Princess) Middleton. While I think the level of attention is silly, I don’t have a beef with the high interest in the event. And I wish them a lovely wedding day and a great marriage.

My beef is with the endlessly repeated theme of  ‘Kate is living every girl’s dream.’ I refuse to promote that as ‘every girl’s dream.’ Playing princess is a fun, fleeting fantasy, among many others. But it’s not the dream I encourage in my daughters.

And it’s not the dream of girls I know. Their dreams focus on being creative, making a difference in the world, speaking out, and doing good work.  Those dreams fit much better with  today’s Take Our Daughters and Sons To Work Day . The coincidence of these two events got me googling “Princess Work” and “Princess Career” to see what kinds of options Kate will have in her new life as princess. The results aren’t promising.

The Google shoo-in is a career with Princess Cruise Lines – that wasn’t on my radar!

My favorites included an enlightening chat between gamers on Mod the Sims :

Vintage Eve: Anyone here playing a sims that is a princess? what is your sim princess’s career? ..what did you guys made out of her? I was looking around for a career for princess … unlucky that i cant find one.. now i dont know.. what will i do with my princess… for now shes there stuck doing nothing and her wants is to be a politician ..and whenever she wakes up her wants scrolls and she wants to have a job..i was like “are you crazy?? your a princess.. you need to stay in the castle and do nothing but rule you people” … so i was askin everyone if they had a princess and what is their career

Another strong warning is Second City comedian Danielle Uhlarik’s Advice for Young Girls from a Cartoon Princess. Fair warning: the advice from Snow White, Belle and Little Mermaid is pointed and occasionally profane so not actually for young girls.

Vintage Eve and Uhlarik elegantly pinpoint the difficulty of being a princess and having a career. The odds are stacked against Kate finding fulfilling work.

That’s just one reason I don’t want to see media and adults in general selling girls the princess myth. The costs to a girl go far beyond keeping her out of a fulfilling career. Author Peggy Orenstein’s new book  Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture details the price, both monetary and psychic, of encouraging girls to dream of being a princess as a life.  There’s no there, there. Girls and boys both deserve better.

So let’s take them to work, today and other days, and give them a vision of the fulfilling work that awaits as they grow up.

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  • Liz

    I agree wholeheartedly. As well, it is constantly repeated that they were classmates and somewhat associates until he saw her in a fashion show in a peek-a-boo top and his passion for her was ignited.
    Way to go with the image again to little girls that they must show themselves to get a man to notice them and to land a prince. Great lesson to pass on “Royals” (not). The old saying money doesn’t buy class.

  • http://www.law-of-attraction-parenting.com Annie

    Something to think about though – Princesses do a HUGE amount of charity work, and simply attending an event will guarantee a higher donation rate. I’m not sure how the cost of the event stacks up in terms of money raised – but very few of our girls would have the time available to do the amount of charity work some of the royals do. Of course, in terms of gender divisions, as in the life of us commoners – it is predominantly women who fill the majority of volunteer or charity roles.

    Your quote wanting girls to have the opportunity to “…..making a difference in the world, speaking out, and doing good work.” – Within the constraints of their position, Princesses can make a difference, speak out for many groups that don’t have much of a voice, and do good work.

    Maybe the Princess Publicity is not all bad – it was nice to see something positive and celebratory beamed all around the world instead of war and petty political bickering. Many many wedding watching events round the world were fundraisers, and the royals themselves asked for donations to charity instead of wedding presents. I have no idea how that stacked up in comparison the what the wedding cost though!

    My three year old Grand-daughter aspires to be a princess at the moment – of course I hope she widens her horizons in the years to come, but she thinks a Princess runs and dances and smiles – is that so bad?

    • http://www.daughters.com Nancy Gruver

      I hear what you’re saying. I don’t have a problem with a three-year-old
      imagining anything and everything – as long as the adults around her
      aren’t limiting her fantasies to princesshood. And I’m not opposed to
      princesses as individuals or saying that they don’t have value as people
      or do good things. I’m opposed to the mass-marketing of the idea of
      being a princess as a career/life goal for girls. I think that message
      carries a lot of negative baggage with limiting stereotypes and
      expectations. I don’t see the upside of that for girls.

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