Thanks for nothing, Barbie

Barbie has taken over my four-year-old daughter Kate’s life. Well, maybe it’s not that drastic, but it’s hard to ignore the perky, plastic dolls that have taken up residence in our house over the last year. I did all I could to hold them off as long as possible, but she’s a girl and it seems young girls love Barbies, as they have for decades.

What really turned her on to them was a long trip to Mobile with me to see family. At my parents’ house, my mom and I decided to pull out my old Barbies for Kate to play with, and she was smitten. I didn’t mind so much because these Barbies of the 1980s were pretty tame. Sure, they had a rather womanly shape, but they wore mostly modest, tasteful clothes and minimal makeup.

Fast forward to the Barbies of now, and it’s a big, scandalous change. I won’t go into my tirade against Mattel (I can get a bit riled up about it!), but suffice it to say, many of the dolls and toys popular with little girls do nothing to emphasize the importance of inner beauty. Instead, they offer a version of outward beauty that most people will never attain, much less the kids in their target age range.

To be fair, it’s not Mattel’s job to teach my children about inner beauty — that’s my job. But I realized recently that Kate is taking in more of what these toy companies teach her about beauty than what I do. And it scares me. For her, the idea of “pretty” is tied to flowing hair, beautiful dresses, permanent smiles and perpetual happiness. I even heard the words, “Will you dress me up so I’ll be pretty?” come out of her mouth a few days ago. I know it was innocent, I know it’s not the same thing as a 13 year old saying it, but it still broke my heart a little bit.

To that end, I am trying hard to eliminate the word “pretty” from my vocabulary. I don’t mean that I never tell her she looks pretty because I do. I think every little girl wants to hear that her parents think she’s lovely and beautiful. But I’m using my mental thesaurus to replace “pretty” with other, more important, descriptions. I’m telling her she’s creative, that she works hard, that she’s determined and helpful and strong. My hope is to show her that there’s much more to being a girl than just being pretty, regardless of how Barbie or the Disney princesses look. I remind her often that what makes someone beautiful isn’t what she looks like, but how kind and considerate and brave she is.

Cutting out the word “pretty” won’t change the world, but I hope it makes a difference in our house. Kate recently had a bad night where she woke up often and didn’t want to stay in her bed. After sitting with her and making sure nothing was wrong, I told her she needed to be a big girl and try to go to sleep. She didn’t call out to me again until the morning. When I went in to get her, she said with a big smile, “I was a big, strong, brave girl!” If only she can hang on to that picture of herself to drown out all the other voices that will try to tell her otherwise.

Obviously, I think my daughters are both beautiful, but I’d rather them be “big, strong, brave” girls every day of their life than put too much stock into our culture’s impossible version of beauty.

Lauren can be reached at LaurenKDenton@gmail.com.