I liked her honesty and the general tone of the book, half-memoir, half-research. Peggy Orenstein admits that she hoped to have a son because she didn’t know exactly how to put into practice the feminist approach of education she preaches. The mother of a 10 year old girl and a 7 year old boy had to read it. Shocking, isn’t it? This explains why I had to read Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein when I first heard about it on Caroline’s blog. What do you think of this picture? It was taken in a souvenir shop in Paris. Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture.

Every mother needs to read this.Cinderella Ate My Daughter. “I wish I’d had Peggy Orenstein’s thought-provoking, wise, and entertaining new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, to comfort me and to help me navigate the Pepto Bismol pink aisles of the toy store and the cotton candy pink channels of the TV dial. A must-read for any parent trying to stay sane in a media saturated world.” - Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out and The Curse of the Good Girl “Reading Cinderella is like hanging out with a straight-talking, hilarious friend taking a fascinating seminar on 21st century girlhood and discovering a compendium of wise (but never preachy) advice on raising girls. At times this book brings tears to your eyes-tears of frustration with today’s girl-culture and also of relief because somebody finally gets it-and is speaking out on behalf of our daughters.” - Judith Warner, author of Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety “Orenstein has played a defining role in giving voice to this generation of girls and women…. From premature sexualization to the risk of depression to rising rates of narcissism, the potential negative impact of this new girlie-girl culture is undeniable-yet armed with awareness and recognition, parents can effectively counterbalance its influence in their daughters' lives. The stakes turn out to be higher than she ever imagined. In search of answers, Peggy Orenstein visited Disneyland, trolled American Girl Place, and met parents of beauty-pageant preschoolers tricked out like Vegas showgirls. But how dangerous is pink and pretty, anyway? Being a princess is just make-believe eventually they grow out of it . . . And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as the source of female empowerment. Peggy Orenstein, acclaimed author of the groundbreaking New York Times bestsellers Girls & Sex and Schoolgirls, offers a radical, timely wake-up call for parents, revealing the dark side of a pretty and pink culture confronting girls at every turn as they grow into adults.Sweet and sassy or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is.

A princess ate my daughter