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 A
Tomboy Mom with Barbie-Doll Daughters
By Michaele Birney Arneson
March 1, 2003
Polly
Pocket!®
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As
a kid, catching tadpoles in the lake and digging potatoes from the
garden absolutely fascinated me, and I was much more comfortable
wearing cleats and a catcher’s mask than I was in a dress
and stockings.
So
when my first child, a daughter, was born, I wondered what I would
do if she developed a passion for hair ribbons, shiny shoes and
the color pink. Or dolls. What would I do if she liked dolls?
Now,
with three daughters in the house, dolls have become an integral
part of our family’s life. For example, our youngest daughter,
nearly six, is “mom” to an assortment of baby dolls.
She spends hours—entire days—dressing them, undressing
them and dressing them again; taking them on walks through the house;
and occasionally giving them baths in the sink (we hope it’s
the sink). Our youngest son, five, often plays “dad”
to her menagerie, and sometimes one can find all five of our children
parading around the house, “walking their children.”
One of their children is a baby doll that once belonged to me as
child, handed down from my mother. The kids don’t seem to
mind that the fingers were chewed off many years ago.
Diva Starz™
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Our
middle daughter is the type I feared. Her room is so pink it glows
into the hallway, and even at eight years old, her primary interest
is fashion. Fortunately, I’m still able to direct that interest
into her growing assembly of dolls and accessories from the lines
of Barbie®, Diva Starz™
and Polly Pocket!®. Maybe someday I’ll
be able to share my own secret collection with her—dolls representing
a variety of different countries dressed in their traditional garb—acquired
for me by my father as he traveled the world.
Even
our oldest daughter, now 11, has a continued interest in dolls spurred
on by her adoption of “Kit,” one in the line of American
Girl dolls. Through Kit, she’s learning about significant
time periods in America’s history and developing a healthy
self-image at the same time. Not only is she able to participate
with the younger girls as they play house or dress-up their dolls,
but I’m also able to use Kit to introduce her to more mature
activities, such as designing and sewing doll outfits.
I’ve
enjoyed this journey through doll-dom with my daughters, enough
to realize that I wasn’t entirely the tomboy I choose to remember.
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