No this is not my actual daughter

I first realised I had a problem on my daughter’s second birthday. Her party had been small, with just a few friends, family and a lop-sided chocolate cake but she’d still managed to accumulate lots of presents. Afterwards, as I sat on the couch with a restorative glass of wine, surveying the mess of new toys, I suddenly got a shock.

There was a big pink plastic kitchen. Toy food and various saucepans. A doll’s pram and cot. A dustpan and broom set. A shopping trolley. A cash register with mini credit cards. A doll that wees. A fairy dress. A tea set. ‘Splendid’, I thought. ‘My daughter is now perfectly equipped to be a cooking, cleaning, shopping, mothering machine’. Oh Germaine would be so proud….

But how did this happen? I was meant to be raising a feminist! And I can’t point the finger of blame for the presents because when I’d been asked what my daughter might like, my blithe reply had been: “Oh, she’s really into playing pretend, like cooking and cleaning so anything like that.”

And this was true. But why hadn’t it occurred to me – or anyone else – that a little girl could play pretend with some cars or a fire truck? Why hadn’t we thought to give her a cricket set or a doctor’s kit? I have no problem with pink and fairies and tea parties. Bring them on. However in the absence of anything to balance the fluff, what message am I sending my daughter about what it means to be female?

I am girly and I am a feminist and I’ve never seen any contradiction in these two things. It’s how I was raised. My mother was a card-carrying, Female-Eunuch-reading feminist throughout my childhood. She even had hairy armpits. This was symbolic because she continued to shave her legs and wear lipstick. Armpits aside, she lived her feminism by working at a time when most mothers who could afford to, stayed home. In this and other ways, she provided me with a blueprint for what modern feminism could look like.

Decades later, I never made a conscious decision to raise my own daughter as a feminist. I didn’t need to. Feminism would simply be enmeshed into the fabric of her life as it was into mine. If I had to articulate it? I’d say I want her to feel capable and confident. I want her to have a positive body image. Choices. Lots of choices. About her career, her body, motherhood, who she loves and how she lives. I want her to believe she can do anything, unrestricted by gender stereotypes or expectations.

But as I sat there looking at her birthday presents, it suddenly dawned on me: I’m not walking the talk. My intentions may be feminist but my actions are inconsistent. This is a problem because now that she’s locked on to me as her primary role model, I’m under constant scrutiny. Every day she’s emulating my behaviour and seeking detailed explanations for it.

Just last week, I had to take her with me to a beauty appointment, which proved quite difficult to explain. “Where are we going, Mummy?” “Um, Mummy’s getting her eyebrows done.” “Why? What’s wrong with them?” This stumped me. I didn’t want to say, ‘Mummy doesn’t like the way her eyebrows grow so she pays someone to fix them.’ Yes, it’s true but what’s the subtext? That I have to change myself to look ‘better’. Fortunately, at that moment my mobile rang and I seized the opportunity to change the subject while thanking God it wasn’t bikini wax day.

Soon I began noticing all the ways my daughter sees me trying to look ‘better’. Some can be explained in unloaded terms. I exercise “so I can be healthy”, not to lose weight. I put expensive creams on my face “so my skin can be soft like yours”, not to prevent wrinkles. But how do I explain make-up and hair removal? Because she’s asking. And I’m struggling.

I console myself with the fact that at least I’ve never come home with new breasts or inflated lips or a different nose or the inability to frown. How does a mother explain that to her daughter? And afterwards, how can her daughter look at her own reflection without that learned reflex of criticism and dissatisfaction?

Girls never see their dad alter his appearance beyond possibly sucking in his gut at the beach. So the subliminal message is this: it doesn’t matter how men look but women must go to great lengths to chase an aesthetic ideal that’s ultimately impossible to attain.

Thank heavens for Dora, The Explorer. She is a small, squat, bilingual Spanish-American animated character with a no-nonsense haircut. She wears shorts, a t-shirt, sneakers and carries a backpack filled with useful equipment to help her rescue animals in the jungle. I think Dora is fantastic. A post-modern, go-girl feminist.

We’ve had a solid year of Dora obsession but sadly, my daughter’s attention is turning towards those hideous Disney princesses – Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White and all the other insipid, underweight damsels in distress who waft about with their flowing hair waiting to be rescued by Prince Charming. Oh how I hate these fairy tales with their insulting imagery of women as helpless, hopeless, hungry victims.

I have a friend with four young daughters who are mad for the Disney princesses. Sometimes, at the end of a DVD, she cracks under the strain and blurts out to her girls “Look, it’s just a story. Prince Charming doesn’t exist, OK? In real life you have to save yourself.” They look at her blankly but I hope the sentiment registers at some level. I used to roll my own eyes when I heard feminists rail against fairy tales but as a mother, I’m now torn between being a killjoy and a responsible filter.

In the months since my daughter’s birthday, I’ve dragged out some of her brother’s old toys. She now has a cricket bat, some matchbox cars and a train set. She adores them. These days she can often be found playing cricket or trains while wearing fairy wings and pink toenail polish. I’m happier with that balance.

UPDATE: This piece ran in the Good Weekend magazine inserted into the Sydney Morning Herald and Saturday Age. I wrote it almost a year ago but they held on to it until last week when it ran. Co-incidentally, just last week, Coco began begging me to buy her a toy iron and ironing board. This stumped me because she has never seen me ironing before. I. DON’T. IRON. It’s just not in my world. So in this, she clearly wasn’t modelling herself on mummy. I finally got to the bottom of it – she’s been reading Beatrix Potter’s Mrs Tiggywinkle. Mrs Tiggywinkle irons. It’s like some exotic activity. Like, say, being a mermaid. Anyway, since seeing ‘superman’ at a childrens’ party at the park a few weeks ago, she’s become quite taken with the idea of him.

So next thing on my list (when her star chart merits a present) will be a Superman costume. Not Supergirl. Superman.