We went to the bank on Friday and, as usual, Georgia got her bag of popcorn (Friday is popcorn day at our bank), and waited patiently for our turn at the teller window. She likes to sit up on the counter and watch the transaction, and she knows that if it’s not too busy the teller will give her a sticker. As she had hoped, the teller shuffled through the stack, and Georgia said, “That one! The vapid trademarked princess with the impossible figure and freaky-huge eyes!”

She actually used the princess’s name. I was stunned. How did she become well-versed in princess? In my attempt to keep them at bay I didn’t count on a very powerful merchandising machine, grandparents, school, and possibly magic pixie dust sprinkled on her in her sleep. My relatively commercial-free daughter knows the princesses, and the princesses work on her.

Now let me explain; we’re not Luddites. But Georgia goes to an environmentally-conscious, natural play-based pre-school—no commercial toys there. We shop, for the most part, in the local natural food market, comparatively free from commercial tie-ins. Though we have a TV, it gets but one very fuzzy network channel, so Georgia rarely sees commercials. We do rent movies, and she yells, “AD!” as we skip past the promos. I think she understands that someone out there wants her to see this stuff, but that it’s not necessarily what she wants to see, and she has a say in the matter. But she wants princesses. When she sees princess stuff she wants princess stuff. She loves the pretty, the sparkle, and the magic. I hate the excess, the insipidness, and the message.

I don’t want her thinking she has to transform into a beauty to get the guy. I don’t even want her thinking about getting the guy! I certainly don’t want her to think she should fall in love at first sight, without getting to know the guy and negotiating a decent prenup! And the princess accoutrements are endless. Anything that can be imagined as princess can and will be imagined as a princess. It’s not me being paranoid. It really is a carefully planned campaign to make my daughter feel like she needs this brand. I don’t think playing princess is bad for her, but feeling like she needs to adhere to a pre-designed script, complete with color-coordinated accessories, raises my concern. And I’m not the only one, Peggy Orenstein’s own princess war played out compellingly in the New York Times Magazine. I’m with ya, Peggy! But maybe you should talk to your child's pre-school about getting rid of the commercial playthings.

So, one of my anti-princess tactics is to go to non-brand territory. We frequent a great neighborhood toy store that carries very few branded toys, and there’s one woman there who is especially lovely when it comes to talking with kids. Georgia usually grabs a couple of stuffed cats to push around in the toy shopping cart, and browses the aisles making notes about what she’ll put on her birthday list. Her imagination gets engaged, and it’s a relief not to feel bombarded by marketing.

Last time, among the knights and dragon figurines, she spied a blonde princess in a blue dress, and asked the Especially Lovely Woman, “Who is this?”

ELW: She can be named anything you want, and there are also lots of characters in many stories and fairy tales who look like that.

G: It looks like [Famed Princess X]!

ELW: It could be [Famed Princess X], or maybe some other character. Or anyone else you want it to be!

It’s good to have an ally, bent on nullifying young desires for certain omnipresent, over-packaged stuff, even while selling them other stuff! Georgia got thoughtful about it for a moment, then went on with her “shopping” and I cursed myself for not doing a better job of keeping her in a commercial-free bubble. I know it’s unrealistic of me, and I don’t want her to be completely clueless—I have to teach her how to negotiate the commercial world. But the princesses have power, and I’m becoming worried about just how powerless I am.