past the barbie barrier

So, Eva got the Barbie Bug a couple of weeks ago pretty bad. I am not entirely sure where it came from, but she was adamant about really wanting a Barbie. It is not that I was entirely opposed to Barbie. I had Barbies when I was growing up and I really believe, when i think about it, that any sort of negative body image that any of us have comes more from the adults around us and less from the Barbies in our toy boxes. That said, I know many many people who would say that Barbies can give girls bad self esteem. More than that, though, I am actively opposed to marketing to kids and generally steer clear of most stores with much of the heavily marketed toys, books, etc. I don't enjoy shopping around and it is easy for me to stay out of a lot of different stores and kind of keep some of that stuff out of the house. But I am not in a bubble and not really wanting to be, so we do have some of it and the kids have watched lots of Disney and Pixar and Dreamworks and all that. We have lots of Legos and Star Wars and let's see, there must be some other things, a few My Little Ponies, a couple of Care Bears, Transformers, Rescue Heroes... You get the idea. It is all balanced out quite nicely with lots of wooden blocks and silk scarves and waldorf dolls and such. And I love seeing Jango Fett's fortress made of wooden blocks that Eva has colored designs on. That said, I wasn't exactly rushing out to buy her a Barbie just out of the blue. But she asked and I could see it was important to her to figure out what this Barbie Thing was all about. And now that I have given my official alternative-parenting-spiel about toys, and remember I am knitting my kids hand made dinosaurs for Christmas, after all, I really don't have very much against Barbie. So after a little soul searching I bought Eva a Barbie a couple of weeks ago to go with us to the LLL Conference. And while there, as if to make another lovely point, we saw at one of the booths, a Barbie who had a baby in a sling who was indeed nursing! How fun!

Today we were at Goodwill and Eva found another Barbie and for just $.99, we brought her home. I was a little miffed about the first Barbie we bought because she is so fancy, what with singing songs (about connection, no less!) and brrrringing when you hold her hand a certain way, her skirt doesn't come off and you definitely can't take her in the bath, she is kind of a different Barbie Experience than any of us expected. But Eva turned her into this evil-fighter who, when presented with an evil Raggedy Andy, for instance, would raise her hands up in the air, brrring and sing and sway him to the lighter side of things. And then she did some lip-syncing with Aromatherapy Bear (he has a sack of aromatherapy herbs inside him and you can heat him in the microwave!), who learned how to sing Barbie's song. This new Barbie met the other Barbie and there was a bit of confusion at first, I am Barbie so-n-so and I am Barbie thus-n-such and now everyone is getting along quite swimmingly, which is great, because as it turns out, the newer of the two Barbies (in our house, at least) is a swimmer and went into the bath with Eva this evening. Now both Barbies are hidden away because Samuel's Bear was hunting down Barbies and Eva had enough of that game and is back to playing with the wooden waldof-y dolls and the new dollhouse that our friends gave us just yesterday! And Samuel is calling Barbie- Barb- instead, which, if you think about it, presents a very different picture. A doll named Barb? is not quite the same thing as a doll named Barbie. I had to laugh at the image.

Samuel and I talked quite a bit about the Barbie logistics as well.

Samuel-"So, is it like there are just all of these Barbies and they are the same person and they do all of these different things?"

Me-"Yes, that is pretty much it." Swim-With-Dolphins Barbie (no kidding!) and Smoothie-Making-Barbie (OK, but there was a smoothie maker in the Barbie aisle with a Barbie face on it!) and just plain old Swimsuit-Barbie, who you can have for a song compared to some of the other High-Tech Barbies. There is also You-Can-Have-It-All-Barbie (or some such), who has kids playing soccer, a kitchen, and a career. That is a lot of activity for one Barbie.

I was thinking just now that Barbie is maybe a little quantum. She is the particle and we are the observer and whichever Barbie we focus on is the one that collapses into our reality. Will the Real-Barbie please stand up? Too much? Well, now there are two Barbies in this house and they are definitely working on their identities, figuring out how she can be Barbie and she can be Barbie at the same time. Eva is thoroughly enjoying herself, so it seems like it was totally worth it to cross the Barbie Barrier. And it is yet another example of how creative kids can be with the stories they tell about the *toys* they play with. Are we powerless to those highly payed, extremely clever marketing people trying to sell our kids a bunch of stuff? No! Do we have to play with things the way they market to us? No! Can we still have a lot of fun? Yes!

Eva fixed Barbie's hair (which had already been cut by a previous player) and gave her a fancy hat.

OK, when searching for a Breastfeeding-Barbie image, I came across this blog, which has been tagged as objectionable. Proceed at your own risk :)