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Chapter 1 What Is a Little Princess? My Life in Pink: The Science of Little Princesses Mari and I are pretty attached. Like, maybe to an unhealthy degree. Here’s why I think that happened: When my son, Cai, was a baby, a babysitter came a few mornings a week so I could work -part-​-time. Cai bonded with me, with his father, aka my husband, and also with the babysitter. She’s a fabulous young woman who introduced Cai to her group of fabulous friends, and they showered him with adulation and attention. Cai loved a lot of people, and a lot of people loved Cai. But when Mari came along, we had less money and by then I had no career to speak of less reason to return to work. For the first two years of Mari’s life, the largest portion of her days was spent with me and my boobs. I’m still not sure which of us she loved more. She seemed pretty happy anyway. Just before Mari turned two I had some freelancing opportunities, so we enrolled her in a -half-​-day preschool program. On her first day when the parents left, all the kids cried. On the second day, most of the kids cried. On the third day, some of the kids cried, and the following week, none of the kids cried anymore. Except for Mari. She still cried when I left her, every day, ripping my heart out with each inconsolable sob. Why was it so difficult for Mari? Maybe it was because the other toddlers lived near grandparents and relatives and were used to occasionally being without their mommies, while Mari had no such “extramaternal” experience. Or maybe it was because I was a crappy mother who’d raised an insecure emotional mess. It was probably one or the other. I considered pulling Mari out of her program and giving up the idea of returning to work. But in time she started to set-tle, though it was definitely slow going. Mari was that -kid—​-the one who’s always on the teacher’s lap in the photos they post on the preschool’s Facebook page. She needed lots of attention and love, and she got it there. For that I’m very grateful. She also started to get other ideas there. We’ll address those soon. Those were heady days. I’d drop Mari off at school and have four free hours to play around with. Man, was I elated, if elated means the same thing as insanely tired. Because Mari was also getting up very early to breastfeed. Did I forget to mention that? Mari was still breastfeeding and woke me every day at four a.m. to do it. It turned out she did like my boobs better than me. We weren’t doing it in public anymore. Mari breastfed before bedtime and naps and when she woke up, but she left my boobs alone for the rest of the day. If I had left it up to her she would have done it in public all the time, but at a certain -point—​-I can’t remember exactly when because of my -sleep-​-deprivation-​-addled -brain—​-I told her “Let’s wait until we get home” and sometime after that, “Let’s wait until bedtime.” It worked because she hadn’t yet passed the Psychotic Toddler Threshold.1 Here’s a question. When Mari was a baby, I breastfed her in public with no reservation, shame or feelings of parental inad-equacy. Once she hit toddlerhood, however, I felt uncomfortable whenever she wanted to nurse. Why is that? Why was my -naked-​-boob-​-exposure awareness heightened just because Mari was a few months older? Why did I feel judged and critiqued for comforting my toddler, but didn’t care when people disapproved of breastfeeding my baby in public? Discuss. Back to my exhaustion, which was as deep and massive as Crater Lake, but without the stunning views and the gift shop. Too tired to think about anything other than sleeping, I decided to finally wean. So there we were. Mari had just started preschool. I was trying to get her to give up the exact thing that comforted her most, and into this messed‑up vortex of toddler separation anxiety, parental guilt and extreme exhaustion, something new and strange came into our lives. Something we had never really thought about before. Something that would change our lives forever. It all started with Color Week. What’s Color Week? you say. It sounds just adorable. Color Week was that thing where all the kids in Mari’s preschool wore blue on Monday. On Tuesday, they wore yellow. On Wednesday it was red, on Thursday brown, and on Friday, all the kids dressed in either pink or -purple—​-toddler’s choice. Isn’t that a fun way to learn about colors? Isn’t that the sweetest thing ever? For the purposes of this book, I took it upon myself to research which part of the brain processes color differentiation. It’s the occipital lobe, as I’m sure you all know already. The occipital lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex. In other words, this is your brain on color:
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Excerpted from "The Feminist's Guide to Raising a Little Princess"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Devorah Blachor.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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