Three-year-old JellyBean has been watching a Strawberry Shortcake video called “Dress Up Days.” The title character dresses up as Cinderella and acts out the story with her friends. She adores this video, and anything else with the Cinderella story, and since she first saw it, she wants to wear a dress every day – the frillier, the better.
I am not concerned about her princess fascination. I’m glad she likes dresses, and I know she is equally happy playing ball or reading books. In fact, she prefers to play ball and read books while wearing the frilly dress. And maybe play in the dirt, too.
This Strawberry Shortcake video concludes with a song from the handsome prince, explaining that Strawberella (I know – it’s painful) is beautiful for who she is inside, not for the dress she wears. I thought I would make this a teachable moment, so I asked JellyBean, in exactly the words she had just heard on screen, what makes us beautiful.
“Pretty dresses,” she said.
“No, honey. It’s not pretty dresses that make us beautiful. It’s things like kindness and love. What’s in our hearts makes us beautiful.”
“No,” she said, complacently. “You can’t put dresses in your heart.”
My daughter also loves frilly dresses.
And playing in the dirt.
That goodness for tags that say “washable.”
“Thank” goodness, not “that” goodness.
“You can’t put dresses in your heart.”
And how do you argue with that? lol!
Well, you can’t fault a girl for being pragmatic. I don’t think there’s a thing in the world wrong with liking frilly dresses, but I think it’s wonderful that you are teaching her about how qualities other than the physical make us beautiful.
The other day Sean asked where Jesus lives and I pulled out the old parenting standard “He lives in your heart” and he said, “No he doesn’t. It’s too noisy and messy in there.” True. On so many levels.
Two little girls I know – cousins – spent their entire third year wearing Snow White and Cinderella dresses. It was hilarious.
That’s classic…it reminds me of the time that Thinker was a preschooler and was in a foul mood. I asked what would help and he said it would help if Jesus rode a mule down into his heart so that he could have a celebration there…anyway, we pretended that and it worked (sorry, Jesus, I know it’s messy in there and there are no pretty dresses….)
She makes an excellent point. And I saw Dr. Oz on Oprah one time, showing off all those organs, and the heart really wasn’t all that pretty.
Having two daughters who are now nine and five I’ve discovered that it’s really hard to argue with three-year old princessy logic.
hmm… could you put a dress ON your heart?
Ah, yes, three years old…the last time my princess deigned to wear jeans. Or long pants of any sort. It’s been two years in dresses/skirts only. Recently we’ve managed knit leggings under long shirts. But only because the word “pants” never, ever crossed my lips. (She did wear shorts last summer. In the dressing room: “But Mama! I don’t LIKE pants!” Grammy and Mama in unison: “Those aren’t pants! They’re SHORTS!”)
And don’t get her started on the evils of socks.
She’s so right.
We’re in total frilly dress rejection here, sniff, sniff….
OOOOHHHH, we have that DVD. Stawbarella. It kills me every time.