"Would you like to sit in my special princess throne so I can sparkle your teeth?"

So the dentist says that to your 3-year-old daughter who has arrived on her first trip to the dentist. What do you say? Well, if you're going to publish a long article in the NYT Magazine, you might want to go with this attitude:

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I snapped. “Do you have a princess drill, too?”

She stared at me as if I were an evil stepmother.

“Come on!” I continued, my voice rising. “It’s 2006, not 1950. This is Berkeley, Calif. Does every little girl really have to be a princess?”

My daughter, who was reaching for a Cinderella sticker, looked back and forth between us. “Why are you so mad, Mama?” she asked. “What’s wrong with princesses?”

What's wrong with princesses? What's wrong with princesses?!! I'll tell you what's wrong with princesses!!!

As a feminist mother — not to mention a nostalgic product of the Grranimals era — I have been taken by surprise by the princess craze and the girlie-girl culture that has risen around it. What happened to William wanting a doll and not dressing your cat in an apron? Whither Marlo Thomas?

Whither Marlo Thomas (wither Marlo Thomas), indeed. I guess there's some big offensive princess assault going on. Got a problem with that? How strong and how good are the princesses? That would be my question. But I don't have daughters. I don't even have little kids, so I'm not following this perhaps deleterious trend. Care to shed some light on the princess problem?

ADDED: Aw.