“Teaching Our Children Through a Real Doll?”

 

Decades ago, I received a Dolly Parton doll on Christmas morning. There she was in my stocking, paper- white skin, long blonde hair, wearing a red and silver jumpsuit, holding a guitar. I played with her, never focusing on her most famous physical attribute, her ample bustline; I just thought she was “pretty.”

Around the time I was diagnosed with Breast cancer, while sifting through a box of old toys, I came across her again. Her shoes were missing, her jumpsuit was tattered and her guitar was nowhere to be found. But there she was. Same paper- white skin, same blonde hair, although a little disheveled. And yes, the same prominent bustline.

It was poignant. Gazing at her, I couldn’t get away from the reality of my life, then, and my life, circa now. Circa now, without my breasts.

Yeah.

I recalled the hours of doll play as a little girl. I remembered focusing my aspirations on these totems of femininity. “When I grow up,” I told myself, “I’m going to be just like her.”

Remembering that childhood assertion, it gave me pause. How innocent and simple.

Yet, in reality, in actual life unfolding, how complicated and even, heartbreaking. It goes beyond losing breasts in a cancer context. It also speaks to the promise attached to image that we, as children are bombarded with as we play. Childhood playtime exists to stimulate our imaginations, to discover who we are, what we like and who we endeavor to become when we “grow up.”

I’ve written and spoken extensively about the harmful power image wields when it comes to subtle indoctrination of rigid messages. Most of that indoctrination targets the female population. Having survived my own thorny experiences with disordered eating, including anorexia and bulimia, I was no stranger to unrealistic body image messages sent to us from the get-go. Turn on the television. Flip through a magazine. Look at social media. How many filters and editing options exist to make our avatars look their absolute best? What about the diet and fitness industries, selling pills, powders, plans and equipment? We learn that a pretty image is important and it pays off.

As children, who play with dolls, indeed, we are learning rigid image messages in those formative years: long, toned legs, tiny waists, ample cleavage, the perfect hair and the perfect face. I know it messed me up. I played for hours at a time, daily, with this 3-D plastic form.

There was no way that child version of myself could ever know that most little girls don’t grow up to look like the dolls of their childhood playtime.

“The body type portrayed in advertising as the ideal is possessed naturally by only 5% of the American females.”

The Renfrew Center Foundation for Eating Disorders, “Eating Disorders: A Summary of Issues, Statistics, and Resources”

Some little girls will grow up and will not have the measurements of their beloved doll; they may conclude their bodies are “wrong” because of that reality. Some girls will grow up and realize they have a face or a hair color/texture that doesn’t match with the doll from playtime; and they may feel ashamed because of it, so ashamed, they decide to reject their hair and bleach their skin. Some little girls will grow up to become adults that, yes, get a Breast cancer diagnosis and have their breasts altered or removed; unfortunately, they may feel like “less of a woman.”

No one thinks about this “growing up” part of life when we’re children. Aspirations, dreams, hopes, imaginations, yes. But not loss, pain, struggle, disappointment, life’s difficult realities.

So, how do we deal with doll play? Barbie and her cohorts are here to stay, because, let’s face it, children still love to use their imaginations, via dress up clothes, accessories, “dream houses.”

Within the last few years, Mattel has made strides incorporating different body and face shapes, hair colors and textures, even tapping into dolls with disabilities. But, I have yet to see a “Mastectomy Barbie” or an “In-Recovery from Addiction and Disorder Barbie” doll option. And, more than likely, if there was such a doll, most kids probably would not play with it. It’d be considered a “weak seller.”

One can argue creating such a doll is going too far; it’s inappropriate. Too morbid for innocent child’s play, perhaps?

I don’t know. But I think it’s worth exploring creating toys that are not perfect beauties. We’re making some progress. I’ve seen more dolls with wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs; I’ve seen dolls with bald heads to support someone with cancer or Alopecia. I have even seen dolls with “stickers” of scars or cellulite that you can apply to the doll.

And that’s great. But should we go a little further? As we prepare children to become adults, should we have real depictions of what some “twists and turns” look like?

My Dolly Parton doll doesn’t represent to me what I’ve lost; my body was never her exact doll shape to begin with. Rather, I look at her now, post-diagnosis, post- Breast cancer surgery and I see how far I’ve come from fixating on a certain “image” of beauty and femininity. I have learned I’ve become a woman who has quite outgrown the doll.

That, maybe, is the message we should teach our children: don’t be the doll, exceed the doll…by being who you are.

Copyright © 2020 by Sheryle Cruse