Mouse-Eared Princess Brides

Walt Disney World didn't seem an ideal venue for a professional symposium last month. Throughout every phase of managing my travel, the Disneyites referred to my trip as a "vacation," which hardly seemed appropriate as I hauled my jet-lagged backside to obscenely early meetings and lectures. Further complicating the jet-lag was the irksome practice of ending every day with a late night parade, complete with rousing renditions of patriotic music that certainly left one wanting to march to the beat . . . except when one wanted to clamp a pillow tighter over one's ears instead. Unless short-order fast food seemed appealing, breakfast was a boat-ride away. This entailed extracting one's bleary-eyed, post-nocturnal parade self from between the sheets at an ungodly hour, in order to hike to the dock and wait in the cold - and at that hour of the morning central Florida was cold in March! - for the boat, and then shiver in gratitude for the fly-back-to-Chicago clothes which, although not quite warm enough, surely were salvation from what felt like threatening frostbite as morning winds whipped over the open vessel making its way across the lake. I never had attended a professional meeting in jeans and fleece before, but, hey, Disney is good for nothing if not new experiences! Even if the mercury pushed its way into the seventies by mid-afternoon, there's no way my decorous skirts and blouses with coordinating light sweaters, were going to cut it on that boat!

Then there was the matter of timing: early to mid-March. Read: Spring break. Disney World no doubt is a magnet for children and families any time, but with many schools and colleges out of session for break, that week the place was a veritable wasp's nest of youthful revelers, everywhere, every hour, day and night. And Disney World is all about the children. A nap by the pool was punctuated by enthusiastic loud-speaker entreaties to join in a hula hoop contest. Every meal in every restaurant had a make-believe theme. Staff often were in costume, and those who weren't wore uniforms that looked like costumes. And wherever one turned, the landscape was ripe for acting out some fantasy. Indeed, each of the Disney World resorts has a theme, and expressions of that theme and opportunities for immersion in it and for absorbing play are everywhere. There are subtle and not-so-subtle suggestions and props at every turn, and everything a child would need to become the adventurer of his or her dreams.

And become adventurers and act out their fantasies they did. At about age three, "Pocohontas" stood next to me on Main Street of the Magic Kingdom, calmly taking in stride the sudden halt of a trolley-like vehicle, from which emerged colorful Victorian-era performers singing and dancing . . . even when one of them left the revue, danced up to little Pocohontas, greeted her by name, and engaged her in conversation. And although wide-eyed and a bit shy, Pocohontas not only did not back away from the attention, but instead gradually allowed herself to be drawn into it. Disney World is a safe place to be a child. And childhood is embraced, understood, and celebrated there.

A number of times I noticed a variation of the same ironic being: A little girl, with the trademark skull cap and mouse ears that characterize Disney, but also sporting a tiara in front of the cap, and a bridal veil behind it and down her back. Yes indeed: A mouse-eared princess bride. Princess costumes were everywhere, and mouse ears of course were ubiquitous. Interesting combinations of regalia from various Disney characters and individualized versions thereof popped up all around. But the mouse-eared princess brides were my favorite. And judging from the looks on the faces under this headgear, this look was the be-all and end-all for them, too. Such happy little girls!

In fact, the entire place was brimming with happy, happy children. I witnessed a rare, mild, fatigue-induced fuss now and then, but no tantrums, no whining, no aggression or violence, . . . only an extraordinary degree of patience, wonder, and sheer delight. Hundreds and hundreds of over-excited children in a strange place with their daily routines turned topsy-turvy, and little other than a large measure of happiness to show for it. And never once did I hear anyone tell a mouse-eared princess bride that she, in fact, could not be a mouse, or a princess, and certainly not all three, that she might not ever be, or actually want to be a bride, or that the other two options were out of the question entirely, thanks to immutable biology and heritage. No, if a little girl wanted to be a mouse-eared princess bride, then a mouse-eared princess bride she was, with the essential trappings provided and nothing but unassuming acceptance all around.

There's a lesson here. I have lived the better part of six decades, and have yet to encounter an adult who thought she was or wanted to be a mouse-eared princess bride. Maybe, just maybe, it isn't necessary, or desirable, to help children understand that their fantasies aren't real, to tell them that some dreams won't come true, or to admonish them to be realistic and grow up. And maybe the Disneyites have it right: If children are encouraged and supported in their creativity, they will tend to be happy, content children . . . and perhaps continue to create, begin to ask "what if?" and "why not?", and experiment and understand the world around them in ways that we in our paradigms, protocols, and evidence-based obsessions would never consider. Confident and brave, instead of doubtful and neurotic, perhaps these children can grow into adults who see ways out of the complicated mires previous generations have left them, and they might even be kind and generous enough to look kindly on their feeble and misguided elders, and protect us from ourselves.

Children don't need to be taught or told to grow up; it happens naturally (although we do have the wherewithal to make the process smooth or miserable). I suspect dreams and fantasies do the same: Supported, and then left to her own devices, the mouse-eared princess bride evolves into a new version of her dream, and then another, and another. Each one fits the circumstances of the child's life and level of maturity at the time, and if we try to mold, correct, or guide them, we produce only a damaged child and a lifeless dream with nowhere to grow and no empowering spirit.

Walt Disney World seemed a poor choice for a professional symposium, where experts from around the world would come together to understand and explore what is to be done to halt the epidemic of cardiovascular disease raging through our society and worsening alarmingly every year . . . while a giant, over-the-top, perpetual birthday party raged outside the meeting room doors. It seemed a poor choice, until I met the smiling, shining-eyed mouse-eared princess brides. And until I saw that if a little girl dreamed of being Mickey or Minnie Mouse, a princess living in Cinderella's castle, and a beautiful bride who would grow up to be just like Mommy, altogether, all at once, then she could do it, she could be it, with acceptance, support, and everyone around her eager to join in the game. Maybe, just maybe, we would solve the problems of cardiovascular disease, and poverty, and obesity, and cancer, and bad hair days, and all the rest, much more easily, much more creatively, much more effectively, and much less expensively, if we were allowed and encouraged to dream, to assume for awhile that the impossible is possible after all, and to ask "what if" and then act out the answers. Maybe our science would be better, and we would be a tad more effectively human, if we began our days with a boat ride to breakfast, lived our days in the spell of magical castles where anything is possible, expected people to pop out of vehicles on Main Street and break into song and dance, and never went to bed without a parade to celebrate all the good that the day had wrought.

I came home, in my fly-back-to-Chicago clothes, with a suitcase full of reports and samples, a bit of sunburn, and a wistfulness about the lack of a parade that night, and about there being no boat ride on the agenda for the next morning. Walt Disney World had not afforded me many quiet corners to have intense conversations about Important Matters with colleagues from across the country, and I was a bit sleep-deprived and overstimulated by days of being surrounded by throngs of excited children. I still haven't sorted through all those papers in my suitcase, and the volume of email generated from that conference is daunting. I'm worried about the toll to be exacted by the epidemic of "cardiodiabesity" that is upon us, and rue the lack of immediate answers. But I have a sneaking, smiling suspicion that even as we conference attendees go back to our laboratories, classrooms, and clinics and do our best to help those we serve and to advance the science that will help that process, the best ideas and most profound solutions may yet come a bit farther along in the future, from eager, insightful, creative, and confident clinicians and scientists who today are fortunate to be embraced and encouraged to be who they are and become who they will, beginning right now as

mouse-eared princess brides.