Barbie Doll with a difference?

[bee74]

Hello. We have been on holiday for a couple of weeks and my almost two year old girl has been coveting some girls' a Barbie dolls. I am not keen at all to get her one and wonder if there are alternatives or even a Barbie Doll with a difference with some sort of cool outfit that is interesting and not pink...

I gave my son a Steiner doll when he was little and he was never interested. The girl very much is and she also has a very plain non gender specific baby doll. She plays with cars and animals and blocks too, but she seems so interested and engaged when playing with dolls that I don't want to discourage her. Yet I don't even want to end up with a house where boys play with certain toys and girls with others.

Any advice?

[mich]

Why do you have to end up with a house where boys and girls only play with certain toys? Surely this will only happen if you encourage it to?

I have a 5 yo girl and my son is nearly 2. My daughter is very much into barbies and Dolly's and all things pink, where as my son loves a ball and a car, but I can guarantee if you put a barbie and car in front of him he will most certainly go for the barbie. He is constantly attached to one of my daughters Dolly's and walks around calling it his baby - feeds it, cleans it etc. we've never had an incident where he has been discouraged from playing with a TOY whether it's blue, pink or yellow.

I find it reassuring that my 2 can play together be it racing cars or playing house with dolls. Is this not something that we all grow up to do. We don't discourage men from tending to their babies or woman from driving cars.

[EmilyPie]

This article/doll might be of interest? http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2012/nov/27/make-way-barbie-welcome-lottie

[EmilyPie]

I alsO quite like these dolls http://www.playmerrilytoys.co.uk/section/223/1/corolle-les-cheries-dolls

[bee74]

Minch - the point of my post is precisely that I don't want to discourage either of my children to play with what they like while also wanting them not to fall into an unhealthy gender specific stereotypes hence they both have access to cars, dolls, building blocks etc. I have always and hope I will always treat them as equals. And my daughter has a go, despite being 3 years younger, at whatever her older brother does.

Thank you EmylyPie. Sounds perfect. I have recently watched an interesting presentation by Geena Davies on the lack of girls heroes in children cartoons. You might be interested in watching it.

[oimissus]

my daughter has access to cars, trains, dolls etc - and entirely of her own accord she will mainly play with dolls and little people, loves dressing her dolls and dressing herself in princess and fairy stuff. Obsesed with Disney princesses despite never having seen any of them. She never plays with her train set, very very occasionally plays with cars. Though the other days she was playing fighting on the sofa with Gandalf and Thorin (I tried to explain that they were on the same side but it fell on deaf ears . . . ).

I wouldn't sweat it. Many of us grew up in the 70s with very gender specific toys (my husband has a very amusing photo of him with his sister and older brother - sister is holding her doll, the boys are each holding what look like submachine guns), but I still had the role model of a professional working mother (and all my aunts - dentist, barrister, head teacher among them), went to uni, never for a minute assumed that because I was female I couldn't do X, Y or Z. You're more important than Barbie! (though I'd go for Sindy, myself, if she still exists.)

[bee74]

Ah, thank you. You are right. Maybe I am getting too worried about it. I have no recollections of playing with dolls but I have just asked my mum and she tells me I had Barbie and Ken and a camper van. How funny that I don't remember! But yes, I have got an MSc, an MA, I have travelled the world, I have a professional job that I love and my own property with no joint accounts and my mum always worked and earned her own money and never took my father's surname after marrying him. I hope I will be a good role model. Thanks again.

[EmilyPie]

I'm sure you will! I have boys. The oldest is only 2 1/2 but is already very obsessed with cars, diggers, trains etc. with very little encouragement from me. (At least we're mostly through the looking at pictures of caterpillar tracks on google images phase, which involved him flicking through the images and me being required to describe the type of caterpillar tracks on each image. Aargh!). Anyway, I do mostly buy him that kind of stuff because I know he likes it but I also try and balance it by: also providing a few dolls etc, which don't really get played with; allocating female identities to any fireman, builders etc without facial hair; and by trying to ensure that both his parents provide role models that show that working, childcare, housework etc are not gender specific. I'm sure it will all become increasingly difficult as they get older, as the whole robin thicke, lily Allen music video debate shows (on a side note, why are none of the interviews about what teenagers think about this stuff ever with teenage boys?). I'm just going to try and tackle it a bit without being too extreme about it. A bit like most things in parenting I guess.

Do post a link to the presentation if you have one. I'd be interested to watch it.

[lightweight]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Unless you homeschool your kids, you can't shield them from the massive gender stereotyping that goes on at school so it'll all come undone soon enough. My daughter was very tomboyish when she was 3 and 4 - obsessed with Ben10, Batman, Superman etc until she started school and now she is an explosion of pink despite my best efforts.

[Monkey]

You could go for the small Corolle dolls, which Jojo has in stock at the moment. http://www.corolle.com/poupees-141/les-mini-poupees-142.html

[minder]

Maybe go for Upsy Daisy from In the Night Garden or any other cloth type dolly that nearly 2 year olds tend to play with. If the Barbie doll is there and in front of her then of course she will play with it?

[snowboarder]

I like the haba dolls - http://www.funkymoose.co.uk/toys-games-creative-play/dolls-dolls-house-from-haba?page=all - could get them both one for Christmas?

[bee74]

Thank you. As a soft doll she uses my son's Steiner doll and grandparents got her something like a Corolle last year.

[mima08]

My family was completely against pink barbie, so of course they became my favourite toys. However, my barbies always went off to the Amazon on adventures (in their pink dresses) and to rescue Ken: I think it had a lot to do with the books I was read...

I'm trying to the same as EmiyPie with my boy, and try to find stories with strong role models in both sexes...

[Beagle]

Hello, neighbour gave my daughter a Barbie for her 3rd birthday recently. I wasn't thrilled but it has been absorbed into general play rather than exclusive Barbie time so she goes around riding a camel. It would not have been my choice, but neither are Baby Anabels and all that. The alternative Barbie style but definitely not pink, and I have looked, is Monster High dolls . . .

I have a girl who just loves pink. She also loves climbing trees. Barbie isn't a harbinger of doom.

[VanessaPMR]

Isnt Barbie's body shape a bit problematic though?

I wouldnt want to stop my daughter playing with 'girlie' things, not that I need to she prefers snakes and trains..to date, but I would stop her playing with a doll that is frankly a bit of a blow-up doll in her morphology. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/07/02/barbie-as-a-normal-woman_n_3534934.html

[bee74]

Ah, that's a great project. Much more realistic than the sexualised unhealthy image of womanhood Barbie represents. In the end I have found on eBay a doll of the heroine of MonstersInc Boo. It's cute, flat chested and fun.