Oh, how the mighty have fallen

As the Internet seethes with stories of Britney Spears losing her mind, losing control, and losing custody of her kids, it reminds me of a more personal parenting defeat I've suffered recently. 'Twas the final battle in a war waged over four long years -- began by my younger, more energetic, self-righteous self, who, much like the chart-topping, schoolgirl-outfit-wearing, virginity-declaring Spears of yore, was fond of making dubious yet plausible statements of personal infallibility. I was pure of heart. I was a rock. I was the center of the universe, 'round which the planets did spin.

It was this version of myself that knew, for a fact, that Disney, and their band of weak-minded, romance-hungry princess characters were, more or less, evil. I believed, in all seriousness, that by refusing to acknowledge the existence of these spineless saps, that I could somehow hold back the tidal wave of sexism in pop culture, and keep it from my daughter.

And let's be clear. I still hate that Cinderella (who's pretty, because she's good) just sits there and takes it from her nasty step-sisters (who are ugly, because they're bad), waiting around for magic to sweep her off her feet and into the arms of some hunky dude who will solve all her problems and make her life complete. Just shut up and look pretty and you'll win -- with a man! Hooray! No more problems!

But from the very beginning, the world has been chipping away at my defenses -- as if the desire to know these fictional, idyllically-figured airheads was transmitted to our children through their mothers' amniotic fluid. Edan was infatuated with Barbie before she'd ever seen that impossibly chesty hussy, and started calling herself Sleeping Beauty, Ariel and Cinderella almost compulsively around age two. So, through unflinching diligence, she eventually found the kinks in our armor, and saw Sleeping Beauty, then Cinderella, then Beauty and the Beast (and loved them all -- more than any other movie she'd seen up to that point).

So, when she scraped her knee on the playground last week, and we stopped in the drug store to pick up some Band-Aids, she was strong, and I was weak. She was bruised, and crabby, and just wanted her daddy to make her feel better, while I was tired, lost, and unable to defend my moral high ground in that moment of crisis. I pointed to bandages adorned with Poo Bear, Snoopy, Toy Story, Cars and Chicken Little -- to which she instantly whimpered "no." My daughter refused these lesser animated characters because she had already spotted the Disney Princess set, and I, in order to heal my aching child, sullenly purchased the packet, even though it cost nearly two dollars more than the plain kind (an inflation so egregious that I nearly pulled a Steve Martin ala Father of the Bride, ripping apart the package in the middle of the store, demanding that the confused teenage clerk tell me why I have to go broke making my daughter happy -- all the while complaining that those thieving bastards also insist on selling hot dogs in packages of six and buns in packages of eight). Oh, the humanity!

How did we get here, when only four years earlier, I was a passionate college student, fervently debating with Edan's mother about the virtues of raising a vegetarian baby and condemning the consumerist, sexist, classist, blah blah culture from which we should try and shield our child?

Because Edan's mother was, and is, along with her future husband, a little less off the rails than I am (or was). It's in their home that Edan sleeps most nights, it's where she has dinner, it's where she wakes up in the morning -- it's her home -- and it influences her life just as much as I do. And, while it's not like her mother and stepfather are buying those slutty Bratz dolls, they also don't run their house like the fascist anti-Barbie and/or Disney regime I probably would've attempted to construct if Edan only lived with me.

This is a good thing.

I've written before about how incredibly frustrating it can be to give up even partial control over how your child is raised. Even the smallest and most superficial decisions that you're not involved in only remind you of what you're missing. It's taken an enormous amount of effort not to pick fights over any number of day-to-day things that, when it's all said and done, probably don't make much difference to the person Edan is, and is becoming.

However, there's something to be said about tempering the fiery resolve of of a 21-year-old, before he inflicts his uncompromising world view on a baby -- only to breed neurosis as he compromises those beliefs, little by little while he gains a more nuanced perspective of the world.

Because hopefully, if we do our jobs right, Edan will be smarter than all of her parents -- able to see past whatever toy, movie or musician -- princesses or otherwise -- that's telling her who she's supposed to be.