With the arrival of the Barbie movie, which my daughter and Granddaughters Number One and Two are trying hard to convince me is a totally feminist film (i’m not even reserving judgement as I have no intention of seeing it), I’m reading articles and social media posts by women growing nostalgic about their Barbie (or Barbies for most had more than one). The latest, from someone called Rachel Elsbery:
“I’ve seen a few men on this platform criticize the Barbie craze or admit they’re ready for it to go away. So, let me tell you a story.
In my early 30s, I went to the apartment (for the first time) of a man I was dating. He had a giant Death Star replica, a Luke Skywalker and a Darth Vader figurine. He was an adult man with toys visible and on display in his home. He wasn’t ashamed or apologetic. His friends thought it was cool. I thought it was odd but didn’t question it (imagine if a new guy/love interest showed up to a 30, 40 or 50-something woman’s home to find Barbie, Ken, Growing Up Skipper and Midge displayed on a shelf). That’s because it’s acceptable for men to acknowledge their childhood. It’s acceptable for men to have toys.
Heck, right now, my 70-something dad has a man cave full of model airplanes, a life-sized Batman and a Darth Vader. I think there is a Superman, too.
Girls and women, however, are societally expected to outgrow and move on from our toys. We’re expected to shift our focus from baby dolls to human babies and from Barbie dolls to being real-life Barbies for our boyfriends and husbands. We are expected to mother baby humans and become the dolls we once dressed up while managing critiques of our body sizes, shapes, careers, makeup and wardrobe choices.
I loved Barbie. I mean, I loved Barbie! But by my teenage years, my collection of Barbies was gathered up and passed on to a younger cousin simply because it was time for me to move on from childish things. But I never stopped loving Barbie.
In fact, I still get excited to see and even visit at stores the Holiday Barbie and all her finery when she comes out each year. I’d have a house full of Barbies if I could. And why can’t I? Well,….
Women are expected to leave behind our childhoods, that essence of who we were, that time of innocence, imagination and wonder. We are expected to leave behind play and playtime.
We’re not really even allowed hobbies except for those that center around home and family.
This is not the case for men. It’s acceptable to hang on to everything from video games to action figures to bike riding. I feel like every guy I ever dated in Austin would spend hours getting muddy on a mountain bike each week.
For so many of us, Barbie is the toy we had to give up along with our girlhood, our childhood. We not only miss her, we miss the girl inside each of us who still loves her and all she represented to us. Barbie could be anything and there was a time we believed we could be, too, before life, societal pressures, reality and patriarchy stepped in, hit us over the head with a pink 2X4, took away our toys, made us grow up and told us it was all our fault anyway.”
I was already a teenager, almost a “proper grown-up”, when Sindy and Barbie came on the scene. I only remember having one baby doll, cloth body and pot head that needed glueing back together more than once. I loved her dearly but I can’t say I regretted leaving her behind, along with her rocking crib. (I even passed on my best teddy bear to my younger sister when I was twelve and she was six.) Maybe the role-playing aspect of Barbie was fulfilled for my generation of girls was filled by the various stiff cardboard dolls with paper outfits we used to play with, some from mothers’ magazines, some in story books of their own.
And my sister and I used to save our pocket money and buy small dolls, maybe 6 inches high, from a shop, probably a haberdashery, in one of the arcades in the centre of Southport. We would beg ends of fabric our mother used in her dressmaking endeavours, and stitch outfits for these dolls of indeterminate age and certainly without womanly figures. This must have been when we were old enough to stitch efficiently and probably too old to play with baby dolls any longer.
Do Barbie-owning girls make outfits for Barbie and Ken? I wonder. I think mine was possibly the last generation of little girls to grow up without Barbie or Bratz dolls or the other “personality” dolls that are spin-offs from Disney films.
As regards Rachel Elsbery’s comments on the difference between boys and girls leaving, or not leaving, their toys behind as they grow up, it has long struck me as interesting, to say the least, how many young men continue skateboarding along high streets, some of them into their thirties. Maybe it’s because so many girls progress into pushing real baby buggies along the street that we don’t see them pushing dolls’ prams.
This is turning into a sort of generational comment session.
My friend Colin wrote in his blog yesterday about his family having only one bin for everything when he was a child. I too remember that. Packaging was re-used again and again. I have four in my garden nowadays, of different colours for different types of recycling or rubbish. Back in the day, wie didn’t have charity shops but we had jumble sales organised by church groups where we recycled clothes, books, toys and no longer wanted household items.
On a similar theme, my daughter (age 43) reflected the other day on how on earth she ever managed without having a large bottle of water constantly available. A bottle of water that she usually consumes completely, having accepted the modern wisdom that we need to drink 2 litres of water every day. Granddaughter Number Two (age 20) was astounded to hear that schools did not allow pupils to have bottles of water in the classroom with them. She is often surprised to realise that I have set off on a shopping trip without taking a small bottle of water with me. Now, that’s a two-generation difference thing!
One of the consequences of the modern obsession with drinking water all day long is the production of drinking bottles in various sizes and colours and styles. Younger generations than mine admire each other’s elegant bottles. You can buy Disney-themed water bottles for children. There’s a whole industry connected to it. Another way for someone to make a lot of money.
Get me started on hair products and we’ll be here all day - back when we all wanted to have hair like Cathy McGowan, of Ready, Steady, Go! fame, how I would have loved to have all today’s stuff to tame my frizzy curls!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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