Thank you Disney!

As a mother of a daughter I read a lot about the evils of Disney.  How the princess thing is destroying feminism and setting us all back... etc...
BUT has anyone stopped to think about the good messages Disney is sending to our little ones?  One of my favorite Disney movies for teaching Babes the importance of intimacy is the The Princess and the Frog.  (No, I do NOT use the word intimacy with my 4 year old).  In the Disney version of this story Tiana (our heroine) gives a frog a kiss, and what happens, she turns into a frog!



 At this point I turn to Babes and tell her, "you know you have to be careful who you kiss, if you kiss a frog, you'll turn into a frog".  And this has been a good starting point for a discussion (that a 4 yr old can understand) about being careful who you hang out with.  It has also led to discussions about kissing, and being in love with the person you kiss.
I know it's early to start this discussion, BUT, I'm trying to plant these seeds early so that when she gets older and begins to think about these things they are in the back of her mind.  I *hope* that I do not get up on a religious high road and start teaching her abstinence, which is what I was taught.  Abstinence is a beautiful theory, but when you're a teenager and you're faced with the choices of have sex with whomever and whenever, or ABSTAIN OR DIE! ... well...  yeah.  I'd like for her to have a third choice... wait for someone worth waiting for (and hopefully she won't be a teenager when "someone" shows up).
Here are some other great conversations starters from other Disney Movies:
Beauty and the Beast - Don't judge a person by how he/she looks on the outside
Tangled - Don't let someone tell you what you can't do AND you sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone
Finding Nemo - See what happens when you don't listen to your parents?
The Princess and the Frog - You have to work hard to get what you want (also you have to balance hard work with family and life)
Also, if Babes ever asks me what it's like to fall in love I'm going to point her to the final waltz scene in Enchanted.  

I think the dance scene is one of the best video descriptions of what it's like to fall in love.... The initial wonder of a touch, the first few timid steps, then slowly the crowd falls away and it's just the two of you, and the unrestrained joy of the dance.... 

My hair is just like Mommy's

I never thought I would get words of wisdom, or universal truths, from Battle Star Galactica, but I did. At one point, Adama is talking to his son Lee and he says and I quote loosely, "when you have children, you see yourself reflected in their eyes." It struck me as true when I heard it, and as I thought about it more I realized that I believe it. When I see my daughter look at me in her eyes I see love, trust, and her absolute belief in my perfection looking back at me. I'm her mom. I am her first role model, and her first model of feminine beauty. In her mind, when she thinks of what a woman should be like, her first thought will be of her mother.
And then it struck me. We are not losing our girls to image disorders through unreal images in magazines, or to super skinny tv and movie actresses. We lose our girls even before that. What is a girl supposed to think when she sees her mommy, the most perfect being in the world and mommy has nothing but negative things to say about herself? How is she supposed to feel when the hair that "looks just like Mommy's" is constantly being changed and treated to "make it more beautiful" on Mommy's head? Or when people tell her she has her mommy's eyes, nose, legs, hips, or whatever, and mommy spends all day talking about how much she hates her eyes, nose, legs, hips, or whatever. And she is watching us. I cringe now thinking back on all those mom's groups where spent the whole two hours talking about dieting, or tummy fat. I don't want her to think that her thighs, or butt or whatever are less than ideal.
We can talk about the media and the unrealistic expectations that these images place on our daughters, but she's watching. How is she supposed to believe what we are saying if we are essentially saying to her, "You are beautiful just the way you are, but Mommy just needs to lose 15 lbs"?