"Alright, so Princesses are actually good people and not as shallow as I thought.  I still don’t think little girls should be trying to be just like them and get their “happily every after.”

    “And why is that?”

    “Because Princesses fall in love with their Prince in like twenty seconds or something.  Just because they think the guy is cute doesn’t mean they really love them.  What happens when they get old and don’t look so hot anymore?  Just show me one instance where a Princess and a Prince actually got to know each other before they fell in love and maybe then I’ll think it is okay to play Princess.”

    “You know what? I actually have a great example of a Princess who got to know her Prince a little before they fell in love."

    There once was a man who had been widowed and left to raise his young daughter.  One day this man decided to re-marry and he chose another widow who had two daughters of the same age as his own.  This should have made the young girl very happy, but the moment the woman moved into her house she treated her step-daughter terribly.  She forced her to clean the house, serve her and her two daughters, and gave her a very small room in the attic with a hard bed, while her stepmother gave her daughters lovely clothes and rooms.  And because the young girl would often sit next to the fireplace and get covered in soot, they would call her Cinderella or Cinderwench when they were particularly mean. 
 
    One day it was announced that the Prince would hold a ball.  Cinderella helped her step-sisters get ready for the ball by getting their dresses ready and doing their hair for them. She made sure that her step-sisters looked their best even though they teased her that she couldn’t go to the ball herself. 

    As she watched her step-sisters leave she began to cry.  Cinderella’s god-mother, who happened to be a fairy, saw this and asked Cinderella why she was crying.  “Oh, I just wish that I could go to the ball too.”

    “Well, I can help you with that.  Go into the garden and get a pumpkin.”  When Cinderella returned with the pumpkin, her god-mother lifted her wand and the pumpkin was transformed into a carriage.  Cinderella’s god-mother then took six mice and turned them into horses for the carriage.  Finally she took a large rat and made it into a happy little coachman. 

    Cinderella looked at all of this and was amazed.  “You have made me a great coach to get to the ball, but I can’t go wearing these rags.”  She no sooner looked down than she was wearing a beautiful silver gown and pretty, little glass slippers.  Her god-mother did warn Cinderella that she only had until midnight before the magic wore off and her coach turned into a pumpkin again.

    Cinderella set off for the ball.  When she got to the ball, everyone there was stunned by her beauty.  Her step-sisters didn’t recognize her even as Cinderella greeted them at the ball.  But no one was more enthralled than the Prince.  He sat next to her at the dinner and danced all of the dances with Cinderella.  The two had a great time together and talked the entire evening.  But fifteen minutes before midnight Cinderella saw the time and was forced to leave the ball. 

    When she saw her god-mother that night, Cinderella told her how much fun she had had and how she wished that she could attend the ball the next night as well since the Prince had asked her.  Her god-mother promised Cinderella that she could go the next night.  Just then her sisters returned from the ball.  Cinderella pretended to have been asleep and asked her sisters all about the ball and the Princess whom they had seen there, secretly pleased that her sisters did not know that they were talking about her.

    The next night the sisters attended the ball and so did Cinderella, dressed in an even more beautiful dress with her glass slippers.  The Prince again stayed by her side and he and Cinderella so enjoyed themselves that Cinderella forgot that midnight was approaching until the clock struck twelve.  When she heard this, she quickly ran out.  The Prince tried to keep up with her, but he couldn’t and he could only pick up the glass slipper that she had left behind.
    The Prince did not know who the lovely woman was whom he danced with; the only way he could find her was the glass slipper.  So he sent a messenger with the glass slipper to find the girl the slipper fit.  When the messenger arrived at their house, Cinderella’s step-sisters eagerly tried to fit the slipper on their own feet, but they could not force their larger feet into the small slipper.  Cinderella then asked the messenger if she could try the slipper on.  Her step-sisters laughed at her for even asking.  But their laughter soon stopped when the shoe fit perfectly on Cinderella and she produced the other slipper. 

    Cinderella was taken to the Prince and the two were married.  After her marriage Cinderella forgave her step-sisters and let them move into the castle and helped them find their own husbands.  And Cinderella and her Prince lived happily every after.

    “So, Cinderella was a good person, and she and her Prince actually got to know each other a little.  He may not have known her name but they spent a lot of time talking to one another at the ball.   Their love was not just based on physical attraction.

    ““It doesn’t even matter because none of it would ever happen.  No little girl is going to get her happily ever after with half of the population divorced.  So why let little girls play princess and think they can get a happily ever after when it will never happen?”