From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

My three granddaughters, Elizabeth, Charlie and Max Margaret, love wearing sparkly jeweled tiaras, princess gowns and bracelets, diamond rings and necklaces. Play acting is a daily costume changing ritual for the little princesses. What little girl doesn’t want to be a glittery gowned princess? Life is an endless play where she can be a star and change costumes repeatedly.

This week 51/2-year-old Charlie announced that her friend Lane had asked her to marry him. She accepted but also declared that she wanted two husbands. Where did that idea come from? Life today has too many choices!

Ever since she was a tiny toddler, my daughter Kate has always loved dressing up, being the “princess.” When her brother Andy came along, 31/2-year-old Kate had a mini breakdown: toilet training went out the window. She definitely let Dave and me know she did not enjoy having her princess position usurped!

When Kate turned five, she asked for a princess party with magic star wands for each little girl. Our living room was recreated as the palace where lovely princesses would gather in their gowns with sparkly, silver wands that would grant wishes and transform frogs into princes. Several royal guests wore tiaras and cast-off gowns of their moms. My neighbor Suzy had a dress-up closet of bridesmaid dresses, Halloween costumes and several, retired prom gowns. Kate, Maisie, Audra and Sammy cast themselves as “Drama Queens” in plays they created for moms and kids in our neighborhood park.

Playing school was a favorite game at our house. Audra and Kate, dressed in their mom’s long dresses, acted as teachers with pointer sticks and blackboards: they taught and disciplined their little brothers, Kevin and Andy. Their boy pupils submissively sat in flip top desks of an earlier era. If the boys became restless, Audra’s pointer would go to work on the misbehaving boys. Sometimes the girls convinced their brothers to wear dresses and become Angela and Angie. That didn’t last long.

At six Kate decided to become a doctor who could perform amazing, experimental operations on her cousin Ben. Dressed in doctor scrubs, she positioned him on the chaise lawn chair, preparing to deliver his baby. Kate was in charge; Ben was her pregnant patient. This time she chose to be a professional doctor rather than her usual princess role. We had a little talk about the birds and bees after that episode. Ben went on to med school, having suffered no residual damage from Kate’s operation. He’s a radiologist who teaches at the UMM; Kate teaches immersion Spanish.

Middle school hosted a “dress-up” boy-girl party every spring. Girls, in their dancing finery, wore their first pair of panty hose, pausing to hitch them up as the nylons had a tendency to inch down below the waist and become sagging knees. Some girls wore their first pair of heels, hobbling, if not tripping, across the dance floor as energetic boys, bursting with party-infused hormones, swung their partners and flung them in out-of-control whirling twirls around the floor.

The next event for dress up gowns was the high school prom; every girl’s Cinderella dream! Girls developed zits worrying if they would get invited to the dance. Then a bigger question arose: what if the wrong boy got up the guts to ask a girl to the prom? Poor guys…agonizing for days before getting up the courage to ask a girl to be his date. It can be very damaging to a guy’s ego to be turned down. As the mother of a son and daughter, I know. It’s such a stressful time in the life of a princess or a prince.

Shopping for the perfect prom dress took months and put miles on the car, as well as a dent in Mom’s and Dad’s pocketbooks. Choices were so difficult: short or long; straight skirt or full; strapless or straps; tulle or satin? Should she be taller in heels or wear flats so she would be shorter than her date? Should hair be up in a glamorous chignon or demurely down, curls or straight? It’s tough to be a gal with so many decisions to make.

But a prom dress was only one of many choices our princess has had to make in her life: next came choosing a college, roommates, a career, a choice of jobs and where to live. Eventually a gal has to decide what role she’ll play in life and perhaps with what partner… it’s tough being a princess today. So many choices are available to girls today!

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.