And the ultrafeminine messages that come along with it. Yes, she's talking about the princess complex-the little-girl love affair that starts with Cinderella and ends with sheets and toothbrushes and cups and tiaras and home décor and pint-size wedding gowns and myriad other products. In her new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Orenstein documents her struggle to do just that: raise a daughter who is happy and self-confident amid a world that encourages little girls to engulf their rooms in pink chiffon and rhinestone tiaras. What if, after all that, I wasn't up to the challenge myself? What if I couldn't raise the ideal daughter?" "I was supposed to be an expert on girls' behavior. "I was terrified at the thought of having a daughter," she writes. All of which is why, when Orenstein got pregnant, she kept to herself a dirty secret. Peggy Orenstein knows this all too well: she's written about girls for years as a critic for The New York Times, and her 1994 book Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self Esteem, and the Confidence Gap was a bestseller (as was her 2007 one). When it comes to raising girls, today's moms have plenty to worry about: self-image, depression, eating disorders, and, of course, a culture that teaches women that their worth is as much about their beauty as it is about their smarts.
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