Baby Carrot is nearly 19 months old, and these days, she is obsessed with all things Elmo. A few months ago, she asked for Elmo out of nowhere – I assume she must have seen a show or a few at daycare – and since then, Elmo has slowly but surely taken over our house.


Yup, that’s an Elmo doll, puzzle and guitar

She also recognizes Mickey (Mick-Mick, as she calls him) and Minnie, and as she approaches her 2nd birthday and beyond, I imagine she’s going to start pointing to princess t-shirts and Minnie Mouse cups more frequently. Although it seems popular these days to knock down the commercialism of childhood – the “princess” culture, the branding of everything from diapers to vitamins to appeal to kids from infancy, the white knight/boy-saves-girl fairy tales and Disney-fied/princess-ified everything, I’ve decided I’m not only going to embrace this stage, I’m going to love it ’till its last drop.

I grew up in Russia, before the Soviet Union collapsed. I didn’t get my first Barbie or exposure to a Disney character until I moved to the US at the age of 12. For much longer than it was socially acceptable, I adored all things Disney and pink, and even today, at the ripe old age of 33, I continue said adoration (though I gave up my Little Mermaid backpack in eighth grade). I have an Eeyore mug, a pink Minnie Mouse sweatshirt acquired at Disneyland proper just recently (on a visit with two fellow adults!), and a big part of my everyday job involves sharing my love of famous characters like Doc McStuffins, Elmo and Spongebob with millions of kids around the country and the world.

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Social norms seem to snap kids out of the fantasy world a lot faster these days – I remember getting teased mercilessly on my first day of 6th grade when I showed up with the aforementioned Little Mermaid backpack, not knowing as an immigrant that its coolness factor expired years ago, but these days it seems that it’s way cooler to carry Taylor Swift’s face on a backpack instead of Ariel’s even in second grade (from what I can see in the school bus line, anyway). Which means that there’s likely a very short window of time for my daughter to enjoy the magical and the fantastical before they become uncool, and what I learned as a latecomer to this world of childhood commercialism that most American kids grow up with, is that it’s really worth making the most of it before it goes away for good.

These days, as we begin to enter the super independent, impatient, prone-to-tantrums stage, Elmo is helping me teach valuable lessons to my toddler. He’s on her diapers, so she talks to him or names the other Sesame Street characters while I change her, instead of wiggling around and making it really hard to get a new diaper on. Elmo goes “night night” a little earlier than she does, so that she can focus on dinner and getting ready for bed, and he “waits” for her at daycare when she doesn’t want to put her shoes on in the morning. Given that Baby C is still learning the world around her, having such a recognizable, relatable character is setting a great example for her to follow.

A lot of parents dread the princess stage. The number of articles, blogs and books written about the evils of princess culture is endless. While I’ve read them all and can see their point, I personally dread explaining why my daughter should really wear more clothing than Taylor Swift does on stage, once she gets to that point, than I do negating the “helpless girl focused on prettiness” messages in fairy tales and cartoons. A few years ago, before we even planned for kids, my husband and I were at Disneyworld and he discovered the Bibbdi Bobbidi Boutiques for the first time. I remember very distinctly him proclaiming them everything that is wrong with society today. Yesterday, we saw a young girl in a princess dress and makeup in a grocery store, and he admitted, not at all reluctantly, that if our daughter asks to have the same experience, he would let her. And so would I, because she has just a little bit of time to embrace her inner princess before peer pressure tells her that it’s no longer OK.

I don’t believe that reading about Cinderella waiting for rescue is going to make my child any less independent or less bright. I don’t think that playing with pink Legos, which she was recently gifted, is going to make her any less interested in building towers. Thankfully, there are enough resources – from books with positive messages for girls, to a growing focus on toys that are more gender neutral and inclusive, to more focus on balance and empowerment in kid-focused movies – to balance out some of the more dated morals in fairy tales. And if branding my kid’s food pouch and vitamins with familiar characters is going to get her to eat, then I’m all for it. I realize that this is all sales tactics and marketing, and soon enough I’m going to have to drag a screaming kid out of a store when I say that she can’t have Mickey-branded potato chips, but I consider it a small price to pay for a little bit of magic for a short bit of time in her childhood.