Daddy's Little Girl

It was Valentine’s Day this week. My two sons love the holiday. My two-year-old daughter is not quite sure what it is all about. The boys brought home bags of valentine’s from school and sat on the floor reading their cards, laughing at the puns, sharing and comparing. Isabel watched and grabbed a valentine from their pile and carried it around until it was crumpled and mangled.

Now, my kids are not as pop culture savvy as many of their peers. They looked blankly at several of the valentines not knowing who was on the card. They know who SpongeBob is but don’t realize that he lives in a pineapple under the sea. They can name Spiderman though they have never seen him in action. They have a strong connection with Scooby Doo and are well-versed in the original 1970s episodes, and I am okay with that. Isabel is even less knowledgable, but she knew what she wanted. The valentine she carried around all day? Bratz.

Now, I have no idea what Bratz are or what they do. I just know that they have big, make-up coated eyes and dress in a way that puts them just past Betty Boop on the skank scale. Isabel had no context for the character. I imagine she was just responding to the color, the design, and layout of the card. But that is where consumerism starts, isn’t it? I smiled when she kept asking for her Disney Princess pajamas when she had no idea who those girls were on her tummy. But it wasn’t until the Bratz card that I really considered how those characters were ingratiating themselves with my children. It seems like a tough time to be growing up as a media seeped girl. I read an article in Entertainment Weekly (see my next post) about the popularity of Juno, and one person suggested that Juno’s success was partially driven by the fact that teen girls now have a cultural icon on the same plane as Holden Caufield. She acts on her own terms. But isn’t that how they are marketing Bratz and the Disney Princesses? I will be honest with you, I would be just fine if my daughter decided that she wanted to get some turtle necks and some square glasses and be like Velma when she grows up. Velma is smart. She is independent. She has her own slang (“Jinkies!”). And, she is all but ignored by Fred. What more could a father want?

My daughter is not media literate. She cannot see past the packaging to discern the contents. I need to work on that. I cannot just examine these issues in my classroom. But this event made me really consider the mindset of my students. They were two-year-olds influenced by forces they could not understand. Where do they stand now?