It ain't easy bein' green...

I like to think that I am open minded and accepting of all people. I preach those ideals to my children and when I taught, I did the same with my students. We are all in this together--black, white, red or purple, Republican or Democrat, gay or straight, male or female, young or old, witty or...like me. It made it a bit difficult when we moved to Montana--the whitest, straightest, most conservative place I've ever lived. Don't get me wrong--I LOVED Montana, I was just worried when we lived there and the only people of color we knew were friends who adopted their four children from Africa. I almost felt guilty--like I had decided to seek them out simply so that my children could see that we live in a colorful world! I swear--I would have befriended them either way--I was just more adamant about it considering the demographics of my new town. Knowing this about me, imagine my disdain for the fact that my daughter seemed to shun Tianna. You know Tianna--the beautiful black princess from The Princess and the Frog...I was so thrilled when that came out (when we were living in "Whitetana"); I was so excited to have my daughters adopt her into their collection of princesses. The first problem with this was the fact that they did not enjoy the movie. I don't know why--I LOVED it, but they were NOT impressed with the swamp creatures or the frogs. That was years ago and I never pushed it--hoping that they would naturally welcome Tiana into their playgroup. Well, it is my youngest daughter's birthday tomorrow and we celebrated with friends on Friday. They gave her three princess Barbies, one of whom was Tiana--YAY! Imagine my horror when she kept leaving Tiana behind. Aurora and Belle just went off to play on their own while Tianna hung out at the grownup table. I kept reminding her about lonely Tianna, but she felt the princess would be fine. HOW would she be fine when the other princesses wouldn't include her in their fun?! It all came to a head when I needed one of the dolls to make Addison's cake to bring to school. I made an Ariel cake for Ryan a few years ago and it was really cute, so I decided to do the same for Addie--but I wanted to use Tianna. "No." Addison stated when I told her about my plan. "I don't Wike hewer." "What do you MEAN you don't LIKE her?! That makes me so sad for her--and Miss Natalie will be sad because she gave that to you!" "Wewell, I DOOOO wike hewer, budd I don want hewer on my cake I want Awoara on my cake..." "But Tianna is so beautiful and I have the green frosting for her dress..." "I don't WANT green on my cake I want PINK on my cake and I don like hewer pwrince because he is a FWROG and I don WANT a pwrince to be a FWROG. I want a pwrince to be a PWRINCE and I don WANT hewer to be on my cake!" So now that I feel comfortable that my daughter is not the racist I feared she was, I am concerned about her obsession with these princes.