Princesses and Dinosaurs, Tutus and Racecars

In the last couple weeks, as I've spent my free time (haha!) browsing my facebook and twitter feeds, I've come across the same conversation several times.  And it's a conversation I'm sure you've heard before.

Does the media force gender stereotypes on children?

Yep, I'm opening that box.

Really, I'm opening it because it's something we confront in our house, and you probably do in yours, or will at some point in the future.  People can get very riled up about this.  The reality is, children have their own interests, and they'll share them with you.  You don't have to push them one way or the other.  They'll let you know what they like.  It's our job as parents to expose them to new ideas and adventures, but they show their own preferences at a very young age.

I have a 4 year old.  She, like many other girls her age, has a princess obsession.  Yes, that includes the Disney variety.  And yes, I'm okay with that.  She loves dress up and sparkles, and tiaras. But anybody who knows my daughter in real life, will also testify to the fact that she is fiercely independent, and strong-willed.  No shrinking violet or wimpy princess here.

So for my slightly unconventional princess, here are some slightly unconventional princess stories:

The Monster Princess

written by D.J. MacHale, illustrated by Alexandra Boiger

Talk about unconventional! Here's a monster who longs to be a castle-dwelling princess, until she learns that true princesses come in all forms.

The Princess and the Packet of Frozen Peas

written by Tony Wilson, illustrated by Sue deGennaro

 After seeing his brother paired off with an over-demanding princess, thanks to their mother's crafty test, Prince Henrik decides that what he needs is a princess who is the exact opposite of what a "true princess" should be. He devises a test of his own, one that will determine his choice for an unconventional princess.

And on the complete opposite end from princesses...she also regularly "steals" a book I bought her brother for Valentine's Day:

How Do Dinosaurs Eat Cookies?

written by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Mark Teague

Because it's about cookies!  And it has scratch-and-sniff.  And it has DINOSAURS!  And it belongs to her brother, so naturally it's her favorite.

Oh, her brother.  Yes, let's talk about him.  My 16 month old boy's favorite book right now?

Twinkle Toes

written and illustrated by Karen Katz

What's not to love?  It has bright colors, sparkly fabric, and smiling faces throughout.  He will go over to the book basket, dig this one out, and bring it to me to read.  And then he will get off my lap, meander off to the toy box, select a car, and proceed to drive it off the table approximately 1,578 times, shouting, "CRASH!" each time.

They're still young.  I know that there will be other outside influences that will act upon them as they grow.  I know we have to shield them from some things, and make decisions as parents that will help them grow into secure adults.  In the meantime, we're letting them be who they are: a girl who loves princesses and dinosaurs, and a boy who loves tutus and racecars.

You Just Never Know (Until You Know)

 

I want to talk about my five-month-old, and pee, and the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Nine years — almost my entire adult life — I have worked as an educator. My husband is a college professor too. Education, facts and research are a big part of our lives, and we were willing suckers for every baby book and doodad that claims to be somehow educational. Black and white brain stimulating mobile? Check. Baby sign language? Alphabet sheets to somehow ooze literacy into his wispy baby head? Check check. But even after just a few months with our little boy, I feel like, cliché or not, really it's I who have most to learn.

Most people are familiar with the paradoxical phenomenon called the Dunning-Kruger effect, even if they’ve never heard of it before. Basically two Cornell researchers did a bunch of observations indicating that in general, the more you actually know about a topic, the more you worry that you don’t know enough. And, not coincidentally, the less you truly know, the more likely you are to overestimate your own expertise! Now, if you're like me, you can instantly, snarkily think of one or two people in your life who this just perfectly applies to. But maybe it’s more useful if we each were first to try applying it to ourselves.

Raising my hand right here: I was a classic Dunning-Kruger parenting “expert” before my baby was born. Reading and note-taking are kind of my favorite thing ever, so I researched the very soul out of every single newborn issue I could imagine. Nine glorious months of page-turning and highlighting! I knew that parts of my pregnancy, birth, and parenting journey would be out of my hands, and parts I could do my best to control. Statistics and anecdotal evidence alike were ready and confident on the tip of my tongue. I spent time reading birth stories of every possible variation of experience. And I don't regret any of that reading, or thinking, or planning. It helped me do pregnancy my way, and made so much of the unknown feel safer to me. Yet within a few weeks of my actual son’s actual arrival? Even though in fact I suddenly had much more experience, I felt so much less of an expert.

Despite having great support, I found there were so many things that felt harder than I had anticipated. It isn't that nobody warned me; on the contrary I had several honest mama friends who shared their hearts and tried to prepare me for the changes newborn life would bring. But nothing really could. So many of the shortcuts, tips, and tricks that had been “lifesavers” for my mama friends didn’t work for me, or for my baby, at all. Even some of the issues I thought I would feel most passionate about, in my prenatal fits of highlighting, ended up falling away as I found myself with a new, smaller set of certainties. Here are just a few of the things I held on to in those early days:

• Things will get easier. Even though every age will have its challenges, newborn life is a tough adjustment for almost all new parents. The roller coaster cliché is true. But it will be okay.

• It’s only a little pee. Let’s just say my standards of what constitutes a true midnight laundry emergency have… evolved.

• Don’t mess with happy. Whether it’s the baby’s happiness, or my own, I have realized how much I tend to over-meddle. He's asleep with his head flopping to the side? That can't be comfortable... maybe if I just "fix" it... You see where this is going, right? It’s not always wise to try to perfect something that is already working out okay.

• Let him see you smiling. He looks to me so often in this phase of his life. Okay, at first he mostly stared at my hairline or maybe the ceiling fan, but pretty soon he realized it's the parents who are the first center of his universe. So I don’t want to always have my brow furrowed, to always be worrying about the next thing that could somehow be better. I want him to see me smile, because really? We have a lot to smile about.

And even any of these, I know, might not ring true for any one reader in particular. My point is: Not one of them would have seemed like an important idea to me back when I was an expert. And it's this change, from the researched knowledge to the experienced, that no one could really prepare me for.

I still read a lot, when I can fit it in. I still care about doing the best I can to make reasonable decisions on issues that come up. But as my little boy grows, I continue to realize how much is probably out there that I still really don’t know. There are times when I imagine all the questions ahead of us, all the things I don't even know I don't know yet, and within me anxiety starts to rise. But when it does, I try my best to remember good old Dunning-Kruger, take a deep breath, and remind myself that maybe, just maybe, the less I feel like I confidently know “for sure” as a parent, the more I’ve actually learned.

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