Sherry Chandler

Barbara Enrenreich with a clarification of the basic Disney creepiness, with a call to revolution. Her rap is about the Princess line:

It may be old-fashioned to say so, but sex — and especially some middle-aged man’s twisted version thereof — doesn’t belong in the pre-K playroom. Children are going to discover it soon enough, but they’re got to do so on their own.

There’s a reason, after all, why we’re generally more disgusted by sexual abusers than adults who inflict mere violence on children: We sense that sexual abuse more deeply messes with a child’s mind. One’s sexual inclinations — straightforward or kinky, active or passive, heterosexual or homosexual — should be free to develop without adult intervention or manipulation. Hence our harshness toward the kind of sexual predators who leer at kids and offer candy. But Disney, which also owns ABC, Lifetime, ESPN, A&E and Miramax, is rewarded with $4 billion a year for marketing the masochistic Princess cult and its endlessly proliferating paraphernalia.

Let’s face it, no parent can stand up against this alone. Try to ban the Princesses from your home, and you might as well turn yourself in to Child Protective Services before the little girls get on their Princess cell phones. No, the only way to topple royalty is through a mass uprising of the long-suffering serfs. Assemble with your neighbors and make a holiday bonfire out of all that plastic and tulle! March on Disney World with pitchforks held high!

Once again, link courtesy of Have Coffee Will Write.

And, in the spirit of disclosure, I should probably point out that I have no daughters.

Meanwhile, Pocahontas County girls, who think “ammunition is always a thoughtful gift,” may be a step closer to the real Pocahontas:

One of the really refreshing things about Pocahontas County kids is that most of them are interested in hunting, or fishing, or farming, or forestry, or some other aspect of natural history. The seventh grade science textbook had a really lame population genetics section, but when I used white-tailed deer as an example, everybody got the concept immediately.

The very best thing about this is that the girls like this stuff at least as much as the boys. Last year, when the seventh grade English class produced a newsletter about November activities, the girls wrote the best hunting stories. They interviewed their girlfriends, and the consensus was that girls prefer bow hunting because the season lasts longer and you can kill does, and that turkey hunting is an excellent activity for girls and their grandpas. Boys didn’t seem to figure in the mix at all.

In this regard, at least, Pocahontas County has a happier situation for young women than many more affluent places in America.

Look at these last paragraphs of the NYTimes article covering Mr. Bush’s execrable veto of the second SCHIPS bill:

Each side sees the clash making for good politics. The White House, convinced that Republicans lost Congressional seats last year because the public was fed up with government spending, calculates that Mr. Bush will please fiscal conservatives by drawing the line against a big expansion of the program.

Democrats calculate that Mr. Bush will look heartless by vetoing health care for children and that Republicans will suffer at the polls.

So, now, is this really what this battle is all about? Everybody concerned cynically making political points on a sentimental issue?

Is there nobody left in our government who does the right thing because it’s the right thing to do?

Or is it the way the news spins everything, teaching us to look at all our politics as cynical maneuvering?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. I just know I’m very tired of children being used as pawns.

The other day my greatniece, who is studying early childhood education, shared with me a paper she’d written about the No Child Left Behind act. She listed a number of reasons why this act has failed our children. A child cannot perform well in school:

• when s/he is born without adequate prenatal care,
• when s/he doesn’t have sufficient health care as a toddler,
• when her/his parents don’t know how to stimulate him/her or cannot pay for an expensive preschool

These deficiencies need to be corrected, said my greatniece. All this testing is just a gimmick. I couldn’t agree more.

I place my hope in young people like her, who want to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, who are really concerned about the children, not about using children to gain power or wealth.