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Community Corner

Moms Talk: Is Cinderella Eating Your Daughter?

How is today's princess culture impacting young girls?

In her book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie Girl Culture, Peggy Orenstein debates the influence of the "princess phase" in a young girl's life. 

The book details how Disney, in 2000, began branding the princess culture to little girls ages 3-6. Today, there are more than 26,000 Disney Princess items on the market, totalling over 4 billion in sales.

This relatively new craze is so big, Orenstein argues, it can qualify as an actual phase in a young girl's life, and can negatively impact her future.

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"... In today’s culture, princess starts to turn into something else. It’s not just being the fairest of them all, it’s being the hottest of them all, the most Paris Hilton of them all, the most Kim Kardashian of them all,” Orenstein argues.

Orenstein's book raises many Mom Talk questions:

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  • Are princesses bad for little girls' self-esteem?
  • Do they put too much emphasis on appearance as opposed to intelligence?
  • Are we right as parents to worry about our children's role models?
  • Or is this all just a simple phase, like Thomas the Tank Engine for boys?
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