Grandmother Stuff.

As the grandmother of two insanely fabulous granddaughters (not that I'm biased or anything), I've been flailing around a bit, trying to find ways to connect with them in a meaningful way, in THEIR generation. I don't just want to share the "Old Timey" stuff, which for my grandma tales, would mean "We had just three TV channels and these things called "rabbit ears" that stuck out of the top of the box. Yes, dear, the TV was a BOX, not that skinny picture frame over the fireplace, and it was only on a few channels and it turned OFF at night. It signed off, and they played the Star Spangled Banner, and then there was only static." Oh wow, that is a whole topic of things I want to tell them and write down for them to look up someday! Grandma lived in Olden Times!

I remember us getting a color TV! It had a 19 inch screen, and I had to sit on the floor (I was blind as a bat even then) to watch! Both my granddaughters are growing up in a household with huge flatscreen TVs that probably work out to less than the original little color models did, in adjusted dollars, and with more channels than I could have wrapped my brain around, even on their very cheap cable packages and streaming options.

Back to the point. I am glad Miss D loves Disney's Cinderella, because her mother did and it did her no harm at all. She still grew up to be a foul-mouthed, high achieving, professional ass-kicker, in a socially conscious and socially useful way. ;-) Adoring Cinderella when she was 3 didn't put her on a path to helpless female princesshood, and I'm tired of Disney getting the responsibility for outcomes that I am sure had far more to do with what was modeled in the home and among peers than on the screen. And let's give Disney full credit for the generation of non-swoony, non-victim-y princesses they've produced since then. I'm not all Princess BAD!

As a grandma, I'm more tolerant of a few doses of silly fantasy. There's plenty of time to discover the reality of life. Still, I want them to have a nice mix of girly fantasy and girly ass-kicking, and I love fun, positive role models. I found A Mighty Girl through Growing Bolder.

Full disclosure: I have no commercial or other links to either website, but love both. I wouldn't object to getting paid to link to them because they are wonderful, but I'm just a castaway on a tiny internet island and ain't getting paid by anybody. Though I wouldn't object to it....