Barbie Come Home!
By Rahima Baldwin Dancy
Not long ago a mother was lamenting that her young daughter wanted a Barbie doll and was having absolute fits at the toy store. I turned to my adult daughter, who happened also to be present for this conversation and said, "That's funny-you never asked me to buy you a Barbie doll." "Mah-ahm," she replied in two syllables, rolling her eyes. "I wouldn't have been that dumb!" (Parents take note: children choose their battles and know where the loopholes are; even as a young child, she knew a futile case when she saw one and wasn't going to waste her energy). "Besides," she added. I could always play with them at Melanie's. She had ten of them!" Fair enough.
My rejection of Barbie--with its unspoken, "Not in this house ... "-even predated my involvement with Waldorf. As a homebirth midwife in the 1970s, I was part of a growing nationwide community that has always regarded Barbie as an insidious contributor to the rising cesarean rate, which is now close to 30%. I mean, Barbie is a cesarean waiting to happen! Think about the size of that waist and pelvis and the messages American women are giving their daughters! A midwife in the Seattle area actually went so far as to make a hilarious video called "Barbie Has a Home Birth," complete with hot tub, chux pads and the memorable line from Barbie while nursing her newborn: "Now I finally know what these things are for!" We rolled with laughter when it was shown at a national gathering of midwives and childbirth activists.
Becoming involved with Waldorf education, I discovered a whole other community that rejected Barbie as inappropriate for young children, for many reasons. Not only was she made of hard plastic with platinum hair, but her huge breasts and romantic interests started the slippery slope that has now resulted in the "tween" culture, girls between 8 and 12 who are now being sold clothing and activities that used to be reserved for teenagers.
Raising my children in Ann Arbor, Michigan, there were even more groups who were anti-Barbie. The feminists and the dancers, who decried the effects of advertising on girls' relationship to body image and eating disorders, would often feature Barbie in modern dance and other multi-media presentations to raise consciousness in this area. In Ann Arbor there were signs that said, "Nuclear-Free Zone," and I always half-way expected to see ones that read, "Barbie-Free Zone." That's how strong and how sure of ourselves we were.
After our children were grown, my husband and I moved to the Sacramento area. One summer day we were stopped at a light in the little red Miata of his midlife crisis. The top was down, he was holding and latte, and my blond hair was streaming. A bunch of teenagers in an SUV stopped next to us and one of them called out, "Look! It's Barbie and Ken!" I shrieked in disbelief: me, of all people! Talk about self-satire.
Then, a few years ago, everything changed when I saw ads for the Bratz dolls. It turns out we didn't know when we were well off. My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. These are teen dolls with attitude! And are they UGLY! If you haven't come across them yet, look at the advertising section from any of the toy stores in your local newspaper. Whoa! What happened?? And these nasty creatures have recently surpassed Barbie as the number-one-selling doll in America, a crown she has held since 1957. "Barbie come home," I moaned weakly. "All is forgiven!"
--Rahima Baldwin Dancy
Comments (5)
I'm old enough to have been lucky enough to have the original Barbies. And when I was a kid you had one Barbie and lots of clothes. Nowadays Barbie is pretty trashy and you have to buy a new Barbie doll for every new outfit! The clothes are cheap and trashy, no real zipers, buttons, etc. It's all velcro and synthetic. I had to get rid of Barbie in my daughter's world so we told her if she sold them in a garage sale she could buy a big girl bike. It worked!
And when I was a kid, we got Barbie when we were 8 years old, well that woudl have been 1961, so maybe it was even older...10 years old? We spent hours and hours playing with Barbie, Midge, Skipper and Ken. I wish my daughter could have had the fun of Barbie at an older age like I did but you won't catch a 10 year old playing Barbie now!
I still have my old Barbies and they are worth a lot of money....the clothes are worth more than the dolls! Too bad Barbie had to become a tramp!
Karen
Posted by Karen Petz | October 7, 2005 9:26 PM
You bring up an interesting point, that I was also aware of: it's become "uncool" to play with Barbie dolls past the age of eight. Yet another example of things coming (and going) at ever-younger ages! --Rahima
Posted by Rahima | October 11, 2005 11:44 AM
I remember giving a lecture one time in Tulsa,
Oklahoma. At the end, a mother sitting on the front row raised her hand with tears in her eyes and,lowering her head, made her confessional that her daughter had a Barbie doll. Now, the interesting thing is that I had not even mentioned Barbie dolls in my lecture. She was obviously feeling like the world's worst mother (familiar feeling to anyone?)because she had allowed her daughter to keep a Barbie doll that had been given to her by relatives.
When I asked her how her daughter played with her
doll, she began to describe a beautiful picture of tenderness and care, similar to how many children care for their baby dolls. Her daughter would dress up her doll, wrap it in a blanket, rock it and sing to it, and put it into a baby bed at night. She had invested love and devotion toward this doll, oblivious to any of the cultural ills attached to the style, form,
brand or genre.
My guess is that this is an exceptional story, but it is an important one. I suggested to this mother that her daughter's love for her doll was special and important and could actually cause more harm than good to take it away from her. When the child shows signs of losing interest or transitioning toward something else, that might be a good time to replace Barbie. But as long as this particular Barbie was receiving such redemptive care, best to be grateful that her
daughter could express such tenderness.
Like many of you, I also did not get my Barbie until I was around ten (1960), and there was no way she could replace my maternal extincts toward my baby doll whom I loved up to my teens (in fact, I still have it). My grandmother made Barbie's clothes, so the fun for me was dressing her up. Mine was a rare Barbie with bobbed red hair!! But despite that and her homespun clothes, Ken loved her anyway!!
Cynthia Aldinger
Posted by Cynthia Aldinger | October 11, 2005 11:50 AM
This is a posting on "Being a Waldorf Family in Less than Idea Circumstances" from our weblog, http://happygardeners.blog.com/125437/
We found that living in a far from Waldorf community we had to make concessions on some things, or our lovely daughter never would have had a single friend! There were no other children with handmade dolls, no other children listening to simple Grimm's or folk tales at story time, no other children learning about gnomes and fairies in the garden, no other children who were even learning the wealth of nursery rhymes and finger plays that we were enjoying at home. We found we had to make some decisions about what we might compromise on so that our daughter could enjoy friendships with local children.
This was very tough as we found children with computer games at home, children with robot puppies with mechanized/computerized barks, children with power puff girls or Disney marketed characters comprising most of their play figurines at home and we did not want to concede in those areas.
So we made a very tough decision, and decided we would allow Barbie in our house. For us this was the compromise, as Barbie doesn't really have movies or tv shows with a script that might dictate play, so in a sense she could still be a vehichle for imaginative free play. Barbie didn't have mechanized parts or even make any noise, so our daughter would still have to speak and move Barbie. And most importantly, all of our daughter's friends had Barbies at home, so it was a point we could all agree upon.
What we found was that the other pieces of what we were bringing (handmade toys of natural materials allowing for free play, introduction to the elementals, fairy & folk tales to enliven the imagination and speak to the soul, celebrating the festivals) protected our daughter enough that she could live into her Barbie free play and still maintain a place for what we hold dear too. Today the Barbies receive far less play time than the handmade dolls...
Leeann Rolph
Posted by Leeann Rolph | October 11, 2005 12:05 PM
I love the article, agreeing that the Bratz dolls and what they represent are far more offensive to me than Barbie. I enjoyed my Barbie dolls growing up, and she did not effect my self esteem nor my expectations of women. That would be my family and society that directly effected how I thought women "should be". I also feel that we can not protect our children from all influences, and instead, when I am confronted with these influences, teach my children how to cope with them, or how I feel about them, hoping that then they learn to deal with them in a manner I would like them to.
Posted by Frances | November 8, 2005 11:08 AM