Fighting a loosing battle

 

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Those are what Barbie's measurements would be if she was a real woman!!  Why am I posting this you ask?

Well the other day my not even five year old daughter was over at a friends house playing.  They have two little girls 4.5 and 6.  When she came home she was literally quivering with excitement.  "Look what I got Mommy!"  She was holding two Barbies in her hands.  " They GAVE them to me.  I told them I didn't have any Barbies and they said I could have these!!!!!!"

 

My heart skipped a beat.... I took a deep breath and my mind was racing.. how to respond, how to respond.......
I ended up saying wow isn't that nice of them.  Well you can play with them for a bit and then give them back.  Of course her response was.  "No Mommy they GAVE them to me to keep.  Their mommy said it was okay."  I repeated my first statement and then let it go.  All the time the wheels turning trying to figure out how to get them out of the house.

Now at this point you may be asking yourself what's the big deal?  They're only toys and she doesn't know about the fact that if Barbie were a real woman she wouldn't have enough body fat to menstruate or that her neck would be twice as long a any real woman or the fact that her feet are permanently on tip toe for high heels.  She's just a little girl who likes to play with dolls.
Well consider this.  My daughter is still not yet five and therefor she still has what Maria Montessori calls an absorbent mind.  This means she absorbs everything in her environment without even trying.  Montessori knew this and this is why she made her materials with exceptional attention to detail.  The pink tower may just appear to be a collection of pink cubes which the child stacks but the top cube just happens to measure 1cm3.  The rest of the cubes increase progressively in the algebraic series of the third power. Coincidence? No way!  Each material is so much more than it seems.  The child doesn't know this but is absorbing it all for later use.

Now think for a moment.  My daughter is touching, viewing and manipulating these plastic Barbies all while absorbing a female image which is completely unhealthy and unattainable.
When I told my sister this story she said.  We played with Barbies all the time and we're fine.  Hmm really?  You have no body issues at all now as an adult??

Anyhow the real question is how did I deal with it.  Well in the end I was talking to another friend who home schools her children and she suggested doing a trade.  The other day when L was over playing with her children all four children (including a boy) were playing with the oldest girls porcelain doll collection.  They played for hours pretending the dolls were sick in hospital,going to school, having tea parties and dressing them.
I just so happens that I had two porcelain dolls that I'd been saving for L from my grandmother.  I talked to L and said I had something much better than the Barbies and if she would like to return them I could bring out the other dolls.  We had a short talk about how the Barbies look nothing like real women but really at this age I don't feel it's right to have her start concerning herself with body image.  Well she was beside herself when I presented her with the two beautiful dolls.  She couldn't wait to return the Barbies which next to the dolls looked like cheap pieces of plastic.  My friend told me that you can find the porcelain dolls in almost any thrift shop for around $5.

So one battle successfully fought and won by Mommy but as my husband said you can't keep the rest of the world away from her forever. For now at 4 and a half I can certainly do my damdest to try!