A few months ago, I was minding my then 1-and-a-half-year-old daughter. We’d come back from a walk in the park, had eaten dinner, and created an epic mess in the kitchen and the living room. All in an impressive 25 minutes. As we sat on the sofa chilling out, me drinking a cup of herbal tea, Kavya sipping on her bottle of milk, she took the bottle out of her mouth for a moment, pointed at the television and said the unthinkable: “Papa, Dora. There.”

Needless to say, I was quite alarmed, and did what any good parent would do: I gulped down my tea, one scalding mouthful at a time and ignored her. Then she said it again. After the third time I ignored her, she’d had enough. She put down her bottle, climbed me like a miniature tree, and clasped my face with both of her hands. Then she pointed her menacing tiny finger at me and repeated herself in a much louder and sterner voice: “Papa. Dora. There!”

Dora, for no rational reason, has been banned from our house since Kavya was born. Neither my wife or I have any ill will towards the bubbling crime fighting 8-year-old Latina. The message is actually a very positive one: a strong-willed, independent, optimistic, female protagonist, who is brown and proud of her culture and language. There’s even a talking backpack and a monkey named Boots. Kavya is all about monkeys and backpacks, and if truth be told, so is her Papa.

The two problems we have with Dora is that everyone on the show speaks much too loudly than a sane person should and are way too chirpy for our household. And she is inescapable, like Barney was several years ago (Thank God, Barney isn’t in her sights) and we have often inadvertently brought Dora home with us in some capacity: diapers, swimming diapers, wipes, cream, and medicine. You can’t even go to the grocery store without seeing her on virtually every product sold to children, and don’t get me started on Dora furniture.

Kavya is already obsessed with Elmo. She is sleeping next to me wearing Elmo pajamas as I write this; she owns several Elmo toys, countless Elmo Books, dvds, musical instruments, and if that whole sleep training thing had worked out as we’d planned, she’d probably have an Elmo bed too. As it happens, she sleeps sprawled out between me and Sona, as we both sleep squashed against a wall on either side of the bed. The Elmo obsession was somewhat intentional – we let her watch Sesame Street and didn’t put up a fuss when she’d receive Elmo toys or books for holidays. What was not intentional was her obsession with Abby or Super-Grover, all of whom are positive characters. But there really is no multi-cultural element to Sesame Street that doesn’t come across as forced. Especially with Leela, who sporadically has an Indian accent when it suits the show.

With Kavya’s small hands gripping my face as she frowned mightily at me, I knew I had to make some sort of a parenting decision. So, in my panic stricken state, I clicked on the first Disney movie I found On-Demand: Thumbelina. I remembered it vaguely from my childhood. The story of a little girl the size of a thumb. Good enough, I thought. As we started watching it, Kavya relaxed, but I had to switch it off about twenty minutes in because it was doing my head in (that’s British slang for “OMG soooo annoying”). The story starts off with a woman who desperately wants a child because she has nothing else going for her, and she gets her wish. Poof.

The child, Thumbelina, is the size of a thumb, and lives in a Barbie style house near the window. She does nothing all day, except dream about a pint sized prince charming to whisk her away. As luck would have it, a pint-size fairy prince saves her from being gobbled up by the cat, and she fawns all over him for a full three minutes (I counted) and he promises to come back and marry her. Then she is kidnapped by evil Mexican frogs with moles, sombreros, and thick accents. Fortunately, the fair skinned fairy prince saves the day and marries the pretty white Thumbelina, after she fawns over him some more.

Any guesses why I didn’t like the film?

While I’m not thrilled about Kavya coming home and screaming at me in English and Spanish, I’ll take that over her telling me she wants to grow up to be a princess.  I’m waiting for Kavya to be old enough to appreciate the awesomeness of the female protagonists in hybrid Anime like the Last Airbender, and have high hopes for the Legend of Korra, which will hopefully be out soon. Dora products are still banned in the house, but the show is on notice. Not yet unbanned though.

Who knew raising girls was so complicated.