HRH Crown Princess Victoria image from http://madhattery.royalroundup.com/?p=818
A few days from now, the feminist world shall celebrate another leaf to their laurel. The world’s first female heir apparent to the British throne is bound to marry a commoner. Swedish Crown Princess Victoria will marry her gym instructor who also owns the gym she works out in. Unlike the first controversial fairytale pair Princess Diana and the Egyptian millionaire Dodi Fayed, Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Victoria’s groom-to-be needed a lot of tutorial about royal protocols and etiquette. This is the first real instance that royalty connects to lay people sealed by a sacred union.
I just didn’t simply dream of becoming a princess. But I actually thought that I was given that princess-treatment when I was a child. Up to now, I am unsure why the clan accorded me such special attention. But personally, I just thought it was because I was the first paternal granddaughter to bear the name of my paternal ancestors.
My dad is the second son in a sibling of eight. But he comes sixth in the order of my grandfather’s offspring. The first man in the brood is my dad’s eldest brother. And the last is my dad’s youngest brother. All the others are female versions and so, when they marry, they take after the name of their husbands. My dad’s oldest and his youngest brothers have only sons to brag about. That makes me the first granddaughter to genuinely bear the clan’s reputable name among my generation. Just by that note, I feel extra special.
I grew up within a large extended family. I was raised with my grandparents along. Thus, I enjoyed much of the old folk’s protectiveness. Since I spent a great deal in the province with my grandparents, my older male cousins always were around to watch over me.
Anywhere I went, I felt like a princess being watched closely by my cousins and my dad’s other siblings. In my school years, even my activities needed the approval of the clan before I can do anything. I remember going to Ballet School with a female cousin. But my ballet lessons were short-lived because my aunts and grandparents feared that I’d grow muscles on my legs and that it wouldn’t be pretty to look at. I also got into the varsity team in my adolescence. In the same way, I garnered disapproval because my aunts and grandmother said it was unbecoming of a lady.
I was also discouraged from entertaining boyfriends for fear of marrying at an early age. That I was sent to a prominent sectarian exclusive school from preschool to high school must have been a relief to most of the elders. Though I had a happy childhood, I was bound by the clans expectations of me. I was bound to be righteously prim and proper.
I thought I had been privileged with extra special things that I don’t even have to ask for anything else. But I wanted to enjoy more ordinary things that girls of my age would. But I just couldn’t. Anything I tried which did not conform to my family’s norms would be rebellious of me. Now that I’m in that middle-age crisis, my ultimate guide to sanity and decency would be my roots… my princess roots.
I may not be a real princess. Not even a reel princess. But the love and attention and care that I got in my younger years instilled this strict sense of integrity. A commitment that I should keep my name reputable. And that I should always carry myself as dignified as the little princess that I have always been.
Pretty Little Rosebuds 