From Bethany Sells, FB – Whole Life Unschooling:
“People with daughters, discuss barbies, monster high, bratz, etc and body image. Thank you.”
A tough and significant topic for me…
Lily and I have had many conversations about this one.. I had barbies. I had good examples. I had supportive parents and friends. I didn’t start to look like barbie when puberty hit. I didn’t develop what I just KNEW I would. Years and years later, when I gave birth to a little girl, I decided I didn’t want Barbies around.
Somewhere along the way, something in my mind changed. I always thought they were just dolls. Then my awareness of my own judgement of myself and others came full circle and slapped me square in the face. I had an image. I had an image in my head of what I was supposed to be in order to be good enough. I had, early on, accepted that my height would never be enough to model or otherwise, but hey, I could probably be a flight attendant (well, that height requirement didn’t happen either). BUT I DID assume I’d develop otherwise in a similar form to what I had in my head. Well, I didn’t. And it took giving birth and having the massive change THAT brought to my body, which took me to my knees, to really awaken me to the internal expectation that had taken hold. I have spent the last decade over coming it. I’m 35.
Until this year, I have had no tolerance for having barbie like dolls in our house. With that, I have sought out anatomically correct, ethnically diverse babies for my daughter to play with. But her desire for Monster High, Disney Royalty, and a spatter of other less common dolls sent me on a journey. I started looking for a line of dolls (like Barbie) that didn’t all look the same in body, face, expression, skin, hair, and style.
I didn’t find much, and the one I did is not yet available retail…
SO, I adjusted my approach and thinking, and began having conversations with her to determine and gauge whether her development would support taking in the concept that we, as humans, are all unique, and beautiful. She was able to articulate that not only is she aware that not all humans can nor should look the same, but she started to talk about her awareness and appreciation of the differences… it began with conversations about skin color. Not what I expected. And it was good.
She now has a few Monster High dolls, Elsa, Anna, Merida, and a few others, a few males, few females, all different ethnicities, shapes, and styles. She vocalizes the differences and how she finds them appealing, as well as tying in the awareness and value of the Common Threads (something that, thanks to Bobby McFerrin, she appreciates and has assimilated into her being) of all humans, and living things.
And her mama? Her mama is reconstructing her idea of her own preference of image, learning to see her own beauty, finding the beauty in every human – becoming aware of the full and many dimensions of beauty, and learning constantly from her daughter and the entire experience. I still don’t like the “standard” and uniformity that Barbie presents, and I still don’t want them around (even mine that I kept from my own childhood), but I’ve chosen to give her the space to create this for herself and develop my own along with her. In this way, we both define, redefine, develop, and grow…
