Barbie

[Rosie_0801]

Nope. We are a non-Barbie household. I'm not super finicky about what dd plays with, but the new barbies are just too emaciated looking.

 

They are thicker waisted than they used to be when I was a kid, and practically heffalumps compared to my aunt's Barbies.

 

 

Dd likes her Barbies but doesn't get merchandise. They are toys, and I don't think it necessary to make a celebrity out of them.

[Mergath]

 

They are thicker waisted than they used to be when I was a kid, and practically heffalumps compared to my aunt's Barbies.

 

 

Dd likes her Barbies but doesn't get merchandise. They are toys, and I don't think it necessary to make a celebrity out of them.

 

From what I remember of my Barbies in the eighties, I think their torsos have gotten thicker, and their limbs have gotten skinnier. When I see them in toy store ads, the legs always look... wrong. And creepy.

[dangermom]

I haven't answered because I'm not quite sure what option would be right. We've never had Barbies in our house, but I wouldn't care if my girls played with them at someone else's house.

 

I was not allowed to have Barbies, though I did have a Sindy doll. My mom just couldn't stand Barbies. I wasn't too wild about them either, though by the time my girls were little, Bratz were making Barbies look wonderful and wholesome! My kids never seemed to care and preferred playing with Pollies and AG dolls anyway. I also didn't buy Disney Princesses. I'm not going to come up with a whole elaborate philosophy about it--that was just my preference. :)

[Heather in Neverland]

Sure, if my dd is interested. I LOVED my barbies when I was young and I managed to grow into a fully functioning adult without barbie-induced self-esteem issues or eating disorders. It's just a toy.

 

My brothers used to torture my dolls, too. Isn't that part of growing up? :)

[MomtoCandJ]

Dd has a Cinderella Barbie and tinker bell and vidia dolls. I don't like bratz or monster high, they freak me out.

[Joker]

Both of my dds have played with and love Barbies. Younger still loves playing Barbies with dh on Saturday mornings. They have zero problems with body image, and I think that's because they don't live in a house that discusses it all the time. We eat healthy and talk about that and exercise, but never about looks or weight. My oldest is in middle school and is a well adjusted young lady who isn't hung up on weight or appearances, so I don't think Barbie did any damage. There's also the fact that I grew up playing with them and suffered no ill effects.

[Guest]

I don't have a problem with Barbies. That being said, I never wanted to play with them growing up and dd is not interested them. She loves animals, which I love. :)

 

My best friend was talking about how excited she was that her daughter was going to start playing with Barbies, and I couldn't help rolling my eyes. No problem with them, just not into them over here.

[jennynd]

No, my dd4 hates dolls.u show a doll in front of her, she run a different direction.

[UrbanSue]

My dd has gotten a couple for gifts here and there. She usually puts them in her giveaway bag each year. She likes the novelty and moves on, which is fine with me.

[Crimson Wife]

My girls are allowed to have Barbies but only ones with careers. So there is President Barbie, Dr. Barbie, and some sort of scientist/engineering Barbie whose specific profession escapes me at the moment.

[celticmom]

Dd8 has one barbie that she does not play with very often.

[LeslieAnneLevine]

I voted "other" because I have one child and he has never shown the slightest interest in Barbie dolls.

 

However, I don't see myself banning a toy my child likes so I probably would allow it. I just wouldn't introduce it.

[Catwoman]

I loved Barbies as a kid. I had a couple of Ken dolls, too, but my Barbies thought they were sissy-boys and only had eyes for GI Joe.

[Sahamamama]

I voted no. One reason is because my hostile, unsafe, verbally abusive sister from whom we are estranged is named "Barbie," and I really don't want to listen to my girls saying "Barbie! Barbie!" all day. :tongue_smilie:

 

Another reason, now that I think about it, is because my children are the exact opposite of all things "Barbie." Instead of blonde, they are brunettes. Instead of blue eyes, they have brown. Instead of an hour glass figure, they are (and perhaps will always be) of a more "solid build." :rolleyes: Instead of being interested in fashion, they are outside making mudpies in the rain. Instead of flirting with Ken, they are reading books.

 

I like my daughters the way they are, and they are happy playing with baby dolls, stuffed animals, and Our Generation dolls, so why rock the boat? FWIW, we have three girls and have never bought a Barbie (or similar) doll, and never will. There are other toys we prefer.

[Rhonda in TX]

I loved Barbie when I was little and had no problems allowing my DD to play with her. However, she really wasn't interested. She never cared for dolls. She played with her stuffed animals like other girls play with dolls.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

I didn't vote because I don't have a daughter. But both dh and I are very anti-Barbie, Monster High, Bratz, all those types of dolls. We do not want them around, especially if we had a daughter. And should we have a daughter we would make that perfectly clear to family members buying presents. I know that it's unavoidable; at some point (if I did have a daughter) she'd get exposed to them at a friends house. Fine whatever. I like to think I could refuse to let a daughter have them herself without making it a huge drama thing.

 

But that's all hypothetical. I don't have a daughter. I don't care if my boys saw them because I don't think they'd know what to do with them. I would never buy a Barbie or a similar doll for a friend's or relative's daughter, but I would never voice my disapproval to them either. It's their daughter, and not my business.

[Jennifer3141]

DD has 3 or 4, including one from when I was a child that my DS stole for several years and took EVERYWHERE with us. She has dark hair. I have dark hair. And she only went out completely nude. Her name was, "Mama Doll" for about 2 years. He totally believed I looked like that doll. Bless him. :laugh:

 

Luckily (for my politics and for my love of history) but unluckily for my pocketbook, DD prefers AG dolls. The Barbie dolls are mostly bath toys.

[sparrow]

I loved Barbies as a kid. I had a couple of Ken dolls, too, but my Barbies thought they were sissy-boys and only had eyes for GI Joe.

 

 

But didn't you find GI Joe to be too short? I know I did!

[Catwoman]

 

But didn't you find GI Joe to be too short? I know I did!

 

 

Yeah, but at least he was more macho than Ken.

[AndyJoy]

I'm OK with Barbies. I had them, but never played with them in a traditional way. I was always frustrated that Barbie's accessories were all pink. It ruined the fun/realism for me so I refused to play with Barbie in any normal way if gratuitous pink things were involved! For my sister and I, the adult ones were only minor characters in the grand drama of our orphan children who ran off having adventures. So every once in a while an adult Barbie would pop up as a shopkeeper or mean orphanage lady, but for the most part they languished in the Barbie box. I picked up a non-pink, fairly rare folding Barbie house that is put away for if I have a girl someday so I can stand to play with her without wanting to gouge out my eyeballs from the pink!

 

By the time I was 7, I was done with Barbies, however. When my sister and I were 10 and 12, our respective best friends would call each other to play Barbies because we didn't play "right". (No shopping or endless riding of horses in our imaginations!)

[hsmom2011]

I voted yes. Before children and when my first was very young, I swore I would never buy a Barbie doll. As she got older, I caved. Now both girls enjoy playing Barbies, but we do have lighthearted discussions about how unrealistic they are. My girls understand that nobody really looks like a Barbie doll, and they are so not to scale.

[Ruby Rose]

Barbie and Ken dolls are one of the most played with toy in our house. Both kids enjoy them and love making up stories and plays with them. They do this for hours.

 

I love that my boy plays with girl toys and my girl plays with boy toys. Why? Because they are playmates and best friends and they take turns playing with toys that interest the other.

[Desert Rat]

I have boys, but the both had Barbie dolls. They would play with them at my friend's house. So, my friend bought them some. They liked them for awhile and I gave them away by the time they were 5ish.

 

Me? I hated Barbies. I received one Barbie growing up and she met a horrible, medieval fate. Hung, drawn and quartered. Oh, the horror!

 

If I had girls, I wouldn't forbid them from Barbieland. But, I wouldn't encourage it either. I do think she is a bit unrealistic for a female figure. But, I also believe that she is just. a. doll.

[Mommee & Baba]

Yes. I loved them as a kid and wanted both my dd's to enjoy them as much as I did.

 

They have a HUGE barbie house I built for them last year and filled every room with all the barbie essentials and furniture. They have a large tupperware full of barbies, kelly dolls, and a few male barbies. I have purchased them barbie doll shoes and barbie doll clothes through ebay's China mart and gotten for DIRT cheap! The barbie dolls I found in ziploc bags sold at my local thrift store for $7 and each bag I grabbed had about 9 barbies in it. I brought them home and treated their hair and washed them up. Dressed them and set them on their merry way to be played with!

 

My youngest dd LOVES barbies and my 4yr old niece LOVES them too. My oldest dd will tolerate playing with them as long as my youngest dd will allow my oldest dd's barbie to have pet dinosaurs and ride on stuffed animals as a form of transportation! :) I had my 5yr old niece over here and although her sister LOVES barbies, she thinks they are creepy! LOL!

 

My girls both went through a phase where they didn't want the barbies anymore. I refused to donate all the stuff since we have so much of it and it's pricey. So I stored it all in my closet, needless to say about 3 months after the phase of "being done"...they both asked to play with it all again! My dd's know what I will allow them to wear. My dd's know when they see someone out in public wearing a "barbie" type outfit that it's not appropriate. For them they realize that barbie dolls are toys just as babydolls are toys and can be dressed to play with in a diaper only. I wouldn't ever allow my baby outside the house in only a diaper. My kids know the difference between a toy and an actual person representing our family. I'm a seamstress so my girls have ALOT of tights that they put under barbies skirts and dresses and we have ALOT of barbie cardigans and jackets! :) My girls dress their dolls appropriate or they don't get to play. For us it's no different than having to dress your babydolls appropriate too! For example my dd's know that if they take a baby doll out it needs to be clothed fully and either socks and shoes on or some booties. ;)

[Miss Cornelia Snook]

We don't do Barbie, but my daughter has nearly all of the Disney Princess dolls, and two of the fairies.

 

Unfortunately, she cut off all their hair. And all the hair of her Rapunzel and Aurora baby dolls. And she even gave her Raggedy Ann a bit of a chop job.

 

She is getting no dolls for Christmas. Dolls just aren't her thing. She prefers to mess around in the kitchen, concocting recipes that I won't repeat here. Or play in the mud with her brothers' trucks.

[TravelingChris]

I didn't vote but I never bought a Barbie for my girls but they got some anyways, They played with them a little but my girls weren't ever all that interested in any dolls past about four years of age.

[BigMamaBird]

I'm not Anti-Barbie but we weren't going to go out and by Dd one either. Our neighbor was heading off to college this fall and gave Dd a large, homemade wooden doll house and it had a Barbie in it. Dd promptly fell in love and asked for another one for her birthday. She got six. :glare: So we not have a large collection of them in the play room. Joy.

[KarenNC]

I think we had a long discussion about this recently, didn't we?

 

Anyway, I wasn't sure about Barbie when my dds were young, but I let them play.

 

They are now teenagers with normal interests. Well, actually they tend to be really geeky, now that I think about it. "Fashion" for them tends to be things that involve a Tardis or reference to Sherlock (like this hat http://www.knitty.co...12/PATT221b.php) or soft kitty or something along those lines. So if Barbie was supposed to make them body-concious, beauty-centric fashionistas, she failed miserably.

 

Sounds familiar :D . I agonized briefly when she was very little, but decided it wasn't My daughter had both Barbies and Disney Princesses and, as a tween who hit puberty early, still has a great body image, is not hung up on labels, more than willing to shop at the thrift store, and has her own developing sense of style. She actually really liked the Fashionista Barbies because they were more jointed and could do aikido like she and her father do :) . Her major complaint was that there weren't enough guy dolls (esp for the princesses) so that she could have families, and that the guys didn't have enough clothes. I did draw the line at Bratz because they totally creeped me out.

 

Currently, the only ones she still has are her Monster High dolls (what can I say, we have a rather dark sense of humor here--her favorite movie from age 5 was Nightmare Before Christmas ;) ) and one Moxie Teen that she finds useful as an artist's model for sketching (lots of jointing, so very posable and she likes it better than the wooden art mannequins). She sets the MH dolls up in scenes on her desk periodically.

 

BTW, she also jumped up and down when a package arrived yesterday----the Dr. Who Monopoly game from a friend of mine :D . Her Solstice gifts are going to be very Who-centric and our house is full of Big Bang quotes.

[KungFuPanda]

I liked them when I was little, and so did my daughter. Neither of us seem to have body image or self-esteem issues. I think they're harmless until adults get involved.

[In the Rain]

I voted "other". My 8 & 11yo girls have never been interested in Barbies. They play/played with Calico Critters, AG dolls, and the Polly Pocket sized Disney princesses. I suppose I would let them play Barbies if they wanted to. I wouldn't invest a bunch of money in a new line of dolls though, when we have all of the sets mentioned above.

[Chelli]

Sure did, but she has moved on to the dolls that I hoped she would for her "Barbie size" play: MONSTER HIGH! I'm sure there will be many here that hate them as much as I hate Bratz (I wouldn't allow those), but we love them here. Their little motto used to be: "Freaky just got fabulous", but I love that they changed it to, "Be yourself. Be unique. Be a monster!" We're upcycling a High School Musical playset, that I found at the thrift store, into Monster High.

 

So, around here, it's American Girl and Monster High :001_smile: .

 

Exactly the same around here. Monster High actually got my dd to read Classic Starts versions of Frankenstein and Dracula, interested in mythology, and listening to Phantom of the Opera. And of course, she's read all the American Girl books many, many times.

[PinkInTheBlue]

I have all boys so I didn't answer the poll. However, I played with lots of Barbies for years and years and loved it. I had no body issues with myself or relationship issues. I loved riding bikes and playing outside and playing with Barbies didn't change that.

 

As an avid Barbie kid, I really don't understand the Barbie thing. To me it's like blaming many characteristics from a child on whether or not they are homeschooled but, in reality, they would have had those quirks no matter what school situation they would have been in. It's a popular thing lately to find out someone has an issue and look in their childhood, point, and say, "Look! That's to blame!". Never mind millions of others experienced the same thing with no such result.

 

Just my ramblings :)

[MiniBlondes]

My girls have played with Barbie in the past, but they were never hardcore about it. They always seemed to prefer other things. They still have them but they use her accessories for the other things they play. For example, her house is used as a Littlest Pet Shop Mansion, her car belongs to the Webkinz, some of her things get used with AG's, etc.

 

I just read up a little and saw that some were discussing Monster High. My girls definitely prefer MH to Barbie.

[Jenny in Florida]

I went with "Other." First, my kids are far too old for Barbie to be an issue any longer. But, also, the wording of your question left a little wiggle room.

 

When my daughter was little, we did not allow her to have/own Barbies. However, we didn't prevent her from playing with them when she went to other kids' homes.

[southcarolinamom]

We never bought any Barbies, but when my dd was 10 or 11, some older neighbor girls gave our dd all of their left-over Barbies. For about a year we had pint-sized dresses, tiny shoes and doll accessories all over the place. Then the phase past, and she gave the Barbies away to someone else.

 

As an aside, when "I was her age," my mom would only let me play with Barbie's younger sister, Skipper. Skipper had less "curves." :laugh:

[KarenC]

We never bought them, but the girls were given a couple as gifts. We left them at my in-laws along with a few other toys so they would have something to play with there. We didn't make a big deal about it, but it's not something I would choose to buy.

 

Karen

[Kyr]

I was never allowed to play with Barbies, and never understood why it was such a big deal. My DD was never really into them, she did play with them with a few friends. She had some H2O Barbie-sized dolls she liked. She discovered WINX when she was 4. They make Barbie look downright chubby. LOL In the last couple years she has aquired a few of the Monster High dolls. She still prefers the WINX though, even though she says the show has gone way downhill from the original.