When I was growing up, not only was I raised as a boy but, because I kept protesting to everyone that I was girl, my parents policed my behavior and forbid any feminine activities. Obviously, things like dolls were strictly verboten.
If I think about the typical female experiences I didn't have, I get sad. To combat that weltschmerz, I try to re-create those experiences now, even though many say I'm "too old" for them. My attitude is it's never too late to have a happy childhood. I'm not dead yet, so I can do whatever I want. You saw this attitude demonstrated when, on a dare three years ago, I rode my motorcycle wearing a pink tutu. I've decided not to let disapproval or incomprehension by others stop me from pursuing my dreams.
But... I lack information and wondered if you can help. I have a few questions which, if you're kind enough to answer, would provide me with important information I really want to know. Okay?
Is it fun to play with dolls? What, exactly, does it involve? HOW do you play with dolls? Is having a playmate better than being alone? How many dolls did you have as a child? What kind were they? Barbies? Bratz? When did you stop playing with dolls?
Thank you for your help.
I used to LOVE playing with dolls. Mostly barbies though. They were WAY cooler than babies. Babies only cry and poop. Barbies can get dressed up and go out on the town. (Makes me think how I knew I didn't want kids from a very young age. Now I'm thinking it was even younger than I'd imagined.)
ReplyDeleteWe used to make massive barbie houses out of blankets. The more clothes they had the better...hmmm...I don't think I've ever really grown out of my barbie obsession. The only difference now is that I'm wearing the clothes.
I would sometimes play on my own but it is much more fun to play with someone. That way you can each choose who is going to be your Barbie's boyfriend and then argue who said Apollo first (from Battleship Galactica). Plus you get to tell about where they went on their dates etc etc. Of course they change their clothes about 20 times per day for every activity.
Ahhh...this takes me back.
Last time I played Barbies was with my nieces about 2 years ago. I got them to design and sew our own Barbie dresses and then have a fashion show. It was a blast!
If you gave me some Barbies and a bunch of clothes right now I'd still have fun choosing their outfits. I acquired my love of fashion through playing Barbies.
bisous
Suzanne
Wonderful response! Thank you.
DeleteI had Barbies and Bratz when I was a kid. I also had an American Girl doll. Mine was Samantha and I loved her--she was so fancy.
ReplyDeleteThe only Ken I had was kind of broken (his leg was hanging off) and ugly so I used to stage elaborate lesbian Barbie weddings as the Ken was useless. I used to play with friends or just by myself. It can be more fun with friends but sometimes there was fighting if your Barbies and their Barbies disagreed on what was going on.
Ha! Love it.
DeleteI was never a fan of dolls preferring lego and lego-like stuff. I do have a reason - dolls like pictured in post still making me feel a little odd and as a little girl they scared me off! as for Barbies it was expensive back then but I had one, didn't really know what do with her (I used to dress her differently all the time but that was pretty much all I did)
ReplyDeleteI loved dolls as a kid. I used to play "house" with my friends, we would create these lives for ourselves and name our baby dolls and talk about our pretend husbands (usually they would be whoever our current childhood crush was) and kind of "act" out our little lives.
ReplyDeleteBarbies were fun too, mostly though I would just dress them in clothes, play with their hair and that was about it for the most part. I had a ton of Barbies though!
I heartily agree with you that it is never too late to have a happy childhood and that we should do what makes us happy now. Especially when we are "grown-ups" because we get to be in charge of our lives now (as opposed to being children and having to do what our parents wanted us to do) so why should we deny ourselves the simple pleasures that make us happy? I never really played with girlie dolls much but I was very into stuffed animal dolls, Tolkien and Alice and Wonderland, and you know what? I still am and my house is full of those things. Maybe society thinks a forty-year-old woman shouldn't be into that stuff, but I think societies expectations of a middle aged woman (and a whole lot of other types of people) are pretty damn boring and constraining :)
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you're courageous enough to admit it! I know several middle-aged women who have confessed to secretly still having dolls in their home. It's not shameful to do what makes us happy.
DeleteI never played with dolls so I can't help. I think if it's babies you pretend you're their mom and if it's Barbies you make them do all the stuff you would want to do when you grow up. Have at it and have some fun!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the explanation. I didn't realize until reading comments that girl's play with baby-dolls differs from their play with Barbies, as you describe. It makes perfect sense, though.
DeleteI used to play dolls, mostly Barbies. Mainly what that consisted of for me was dressing them up and having them kiss table legs because I didn't have a Ken doll. For me, it wasn't so much about the dolls at it was the interaction of laying "house" and "life" (e.g., Barbie teaching or going on a date). In fact, sometimes we did the same game with stuffed animals. However, more than dolls, I ADORED Fashion Plates. This was my dream, designing clothes for my Barbie. I don't think I would enjoy dolls anymore, but I know for sure I'd like Fashion Plates still.
ReplyDeleteGreat stories. Kissing table legs! I love that. I need to look up what Fashion Plates is.
DeleteWell, crazy as it may sound, I still have my dolls.
ReplyDeleteI have at least 4 Barbies left and others such as Cabbage Patch Kids that I take out of the box on Christmas, dress them in Christmasey prints and let them sit in the living room for the entire month of December.
I remember loving dressing them up and doing their hair. They would cook, rider their convertible, play in the swimming pool and even ride their pony.
You're not alone, Lorena! Lots of women have hung on to their dolls in adulthood. I understand why. It's hard to part with the simple pleasures of childhood.
DeleteI played with all kinds of toys from Transformers to Barbies to Legos. I even had my Mom's Francie doll from the 50s/60s. I still do. I remember liking having my dolls do adult things like going to work and having relationships. I did enjoy dressing them up but it wasn't my big thing. I used to make cars out of shoe boxes and they would ride ceramic horses from the flea market. My favorite dolls were Madame Alexander, which I also still have. They are so beautiful but I wasn't really allowed to play with them much b/c they were expensive. I hope to pass them on to a daughter one day, not sure if I could let her play with them though. Old habits die hard. I think I officially stopped playing Barbies when I was about 13/14. Maybe a little old but I was a weird little kid.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing pictures of Francie dolls in my childhood. And don't feel "weird" about stopping play at 13/14; I'm just starting play at 56!
DeleteI had some barbies and a Sindy (and my Stepmum's Tammy). I liked fashions shows occasionally and spent a lot of time getting them dressed up in loads of different outfits (we had a whole bag of clothes including knitted ones from my Step-grandma) but I guess I just enacted daily life, dramas and melodramas etc. We had a beautiful Sindy wedding dress, so I often did weddings with my favourite Barbie who looked like Kim Basinger in Never say never again. I also didn't have a Ken so in the wedding, poor Barbie would have to get married to a glow-in the dark green jelly-skeleton! That was the only vaguely male toy I had at my Dad's house. x
ReplyDeleteAlly,
ReplyDeleteCheck this event out
http://teddycon.org/
Is it fun to play with dolls? For me not really, but seeing other people yes
What, exactly, does it involve? Anything and everything you want, Remember it is all about imagination and being creative, going into your own world
HOW do you play with dolls? I dont
Is having a playmate better than being alone? Yes
How many dolls did you have as a child? I had a few cabbage patch kid dolls, and some barbies, but i used to cut their hair and chop off their head and pull off their legs
What kind were they? Barbies? Chopped them all up Bratz? Didn't exist when i grew up
When did you stop playing with dolls? Never really played with dolls
i had a suitcase full of barbies...most of them passed down. in fact, i don't really remember buying new ones. there was a period when i enjoyed them and liked dressing them...changing their clothes...i remember those darn little shoes - some would never stay on! i also like having the barbie houses. i think i just enjoyed the fact that everything was miniature! i was seven years behind my sisters, so i played mostly by myself at home. when i did play with friends, to be honest, i don't remember what we did?! i remember playing outside with them, riding bicycles.
ReplyDeletei didn't have any other kinds of dolls.
I mostly just played with Barbies. For me I was just into styling their hair and dressing them. Barbie fashion was the best and there were outfits and accessories you could buy for her so you weren't stuck with whatever outfit she originally came in. At any given time I had about 8-10 Barbies which I think is norm for the average little girl. I liked to come with with scenarios for them like, Teresa and Molly are going to the mall or Barbie and Stacey are going out on a date with their boyfriends and then I'd act them out.
ReplyDeleteI played with both baby dolls and Barbie dolls as a kid. I played with baby dolls much longer than normal kids. I had a bitty baby and would dress it and have a diaper bag and stroller and all the mom gear. I played with it like it was my own baby. That was the point with baby dolls. Funny thing is, once I grew out of that, I realized I don't like babies and don't want one. I can get fun accessories to take care of my dog, instead. She's needy too. I also played barbies and just like every one else, would dress them and have them do stuff and go places. I didn't have a Ken doll so there was a lot of lesbian action going on with my barbies. With either doll, it was more fun to play with friends. Barbie would be more fun now since the baby thing was novel when you didn't know what a pain in the ass real babies were.
ReplyDeleteI never got into Barbie, although I did own a She-Ra doll (probably because she came with a horse!) Speaking of horses, most of my play involved either My Little Ponies or stuffed animals. The ponies had all kinds of fun clothing and you could braid their tails and manes, decorate with ribbons, etc. I don't think I ever played with ponies or stuffed toys by myself, as I have a twin sis and a cousin fairly close in age. The ponies even had a pink castle that was the scene of many convoluted plots. Spending hours in imaginative play is one of my fondest memories of childhood, and something I hope my future offspring will enjoy - I think electronics has really pushed out this kind of play, which is too bad.
ReplyDeleteMy sisters and I had a few baby dolls when we were really young. We mostly played "mommy" with them--we'd pretend to feed them, rock them, change their diapers, put them down for naps. One doll had a mic in it, and if you were too loud when she was "sleeping," she'd wake up and cry. Another had a tube running through her, so when you fed her water from a bottle, it came out the other end into her diaper.
ReplyDeleteWhen we got older, we switched to Barbies. With those, it was more scenario based--Barbie and her friend Barbie hang out in their house, or go shopping, or meet their other friend Barbie for an adventure. Sometimes they climbed mountains (our beds) or went bungee jumping down the stairs. We were short on Ken dolls (maybe one Ken for about six Barbies), so we chopped the hair on one and made her a him. He wore sweats and I think we called him Underdog, for some reason.
My youngest sister is eight, and I don't think she really plays with dolls at all. I'm not sure if she ever did, though I went to college when she was just six months old so I didn't get to see her grow up really. I know she now has video games and stuff that mimics the same kind of playacting activities.
Thanks for the excuse to traipse down memory lane. I hadn't thought about the dolls I used to play with in a lonnnng time.
Oh and I forgot to mention, my Barbie play was about 50/50 a shared experience. Half the time I collaborated with my sisters to come up with scenarios and act them out, but I was equally happy playing the parts of four or five Barbies at once--just picking up the two who were "active" at the moment. I was a weird kid, though :)
DeleteYou had a transgender Ken! He started out as a girl and ended up as a boy. That's too funny.
DeleteYup! It wasn't until adulthood that I realized what a progressive child I was, haha :P
DeleteDolls to play with, I never had. All my dolls were antiques passed to me from mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers & aunts. They sat in display cases and they do to this day. Barbie dolls never interested me. I do remember a stuffed animal or two. As kids we were encouraged to play outside and do board games & puzzles on rainy days. I could bounce a mean pogo stick back then. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit late but I am going to chime in anyhow. Yes, I did play with dolls. I had baby dolls and Barbie dolls and played with both until I was around ten years old. I played on my own and with a friend and liked that equally. Probably that has more to do with being an introvert. I am guessing extroverts like massive crowd doll play. ;-)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger I liked playing with baby dolls, pretending to be a mummy and feeding, bathing, carrying around, pushing in a pram, playing house sorts of things featured most. After the age of eight it became more about Barbies which was a form of playing at being a young single woman instead of a mother. Really the most fun about Barbie was dressing her and I also made clothes myself, quite badly but it was fun. The playing part generally involved acting out a lifestyle that my young self imagined a twenty-something single woman might have. Barbie mostly went on dates, hung out with her friends and tried on different outfits. She was sexually inexperienced and naive. Since I was a child of the seventies, my Barbies did not have big hair and glittery dresses, they had long straight hair and long denim skirts.
I also had a toy I loved that I simply called The Head. It was a life sized head that looked somewhat like a Barbie though mine was not the Barbie brand. The purpose of it was just to style hair. I brushed, curled, washed, styled hair on this head. There was a fancier version that I think was Barbie and you could put makeup on it too. I also played with paper dolls a bit.
I would love to have one of those dressmaker's mannequins so I can dress it up in the outfits I don't war myself. Essentially that would be my adult version of playing dolls. I think you should do that too.
xoxo
I like the mannequin idea. I've stared at them longingly but never thought about playing with one. Thanks for the idea!
DeleteI remember being 6/7 and i had all the my little ponies. A lot of the photos i had long hair, i don't know if my mother wanted a daughter lol. I still have a my little pony that my wife bought for me 10 years ago. Brony for life :)
ReplyDeleteI've heard of Bronies! That's cool. I once saw real wild ponies at a famous refuge here; they were beautiful.
DeleteI used to play with My Little Ponies, too! In fact, I managed to keep a couple of them ;) They were always my favorite. Remember the scented ones? lol.
DeleteDolls are practice for adulthood. Baby dolls prepare us for babies, and Barbie prepares us for fashion. What else is there?
ReplyDeleteI played with Barbies. Those were my favorite. I also like Polly Pocket. I had a HUGE imagination and couldn't wait to play with all my friends after school. I'd play with Beanie Babies with my little brother too.
ReplyDeleteBut all that playing stopped when it became boring to me. I stopped playing with Barbies when I was...maybe in the 2nd grade. It just wasn't the same as when I was younger. Plus, most of my friends outgrew them before I did. I still collected Barbies for years after :)
Thanks for sharing your story! Wearing a tutu while riding a motorcycle sounds fun lol.
xo Azu