So, I have a major bugbear and it’s with my own generation’s use of a particular so-called “nickname” given to their children. It’s “prince”, or “princess”, whichever applies depending on the child’s sex, obviously.
I cannot abide it. It annoys the HELL out of me. I was NEVER called princess by my father, nor did I ever want to be. He, my father, calls me anything else but my name as it is but it was never that. If you really want to make your child feel so self-important and self-entitled, then this is the way to do it – and I strongly advise against it. My mum, sometimes my dad and one or two of my aunts, often called me “chicken” or a few other takes on my real name, but NEVER princess. It’s bad enough that my brothers teased me, calling me “perfect”, which I certainly was not, I never claimed to be any such thing. Not that anybody is perfect, but they just seemed to latch on to this particular idea for some unknown reason.
A certain friend of mine calls his daughter that and she seems to take it to mean that she doesn’t need to lift a finger for herself, that everything will be done for her, all bar dress, wash and feed herself; the lazy, useless sack of flesh that she is. She’d send someone else to school for her, and to do her homework too, if she could get away with it. I know she would. She thinks she can manipulate people but she’s not smart enough to do that. She thinks she is but she’s only fooling herself. She’s as naive and gullible as there is going and has no idea what the real world is like. She has absolutely no filter between her mouth and her brain and she has an opinion on EVERYTHING when she knows nothing about nothing. But herein lies my example. She’s the self-entitled “princess” who wants everything handed to her on a plate – for nothing. Sadly, for her, I’d take things away from her, not give them to her, as she’d find out, if I was still in her father’s life. Little Miss Self Important would get a VERY rude awakening from me, that’s for sure.
But, regardless, I know other friends who call their kids this, prince as well as princess, and unless they’re actually of royal blood, it stands for nothing and it boils my blood. Way to make your child/children feel SO self-important that they never want/need/have to lift a finger again. And you wonder why you’re run ragged and so tired all the time, running around after your precious offspring, making them believe that they don’t have to go to school/college/university, study/train up to do whatever it is they want to do, that somebody else will do all the heavy lifting for them, now and in the future. Way to go! Keep on doing that so and see where it gets you. It’s like falling in to the lion’s den and practically feeding yourself to the lions. It’s detrimental to you and to them and their future – if they have one, after being molly-coddled so much since infancy.
I don’t have children. I don’t want to have any children. But IF I were to have a child, or children, they most certainly would NOT be called prince or princess, unless actually royally entitled to be so. Singing their praises, their achievements, to all and sundry is all well and good, but if there was a guide book to raising children, I’d put this as rule number one. You’re only setting yourself up for a fall. Your child, or children, won’t want to do anything. Just wait and see. They’ll expect praise, treats and pocket money for nothing. A bit like someone I already know. And none of it would be deserved! So think twice before resorting to such flawed favourtism. It’s not encouragement, it’s not practical or ideal and it certainly has no basis in child rearing in this day and age. When I was growing up, we got a whack on the bum, or the ear, were deprived of television, meeting friends, birthday parties etc., whatever applied at the time. We didn’t have our technological devices and WiFi (Broadband) like we do now. We were deprived of whatever we had at the time as punishment. Taking away devices achieves nothing because they’ll find other ways to get online (without you knowing, they’ll think, unless you’re actually monitoring their usage). So use your head before branding your children with such ridiculous “nicknames”. It’s not a pleasantry, or a kindness, and it will only work against YOU, the parent. Your child is your child, not your friend. You treat friends, siblings and offspring differently, or you should. And if you’re not, you’re only shooting yourselves in the foot.
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