Comments on: Did your mom let you play with white dolls or Barbies? – post 1

By: cosaundra chapple

cosaundra chapple — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:54:34 +0000

ALL I EVER HAD WAS A WHITE DOLL I DID’T REALIZED THEY MADE BLACK DOLLS UNTIL I WAS TOO OLD FOR A DOLL.I THINK THE STORE OWNER ONLY ORDERED WHITE DOLLS I WAS FROM A SMALL RURAL AREA.AND DON’T REMEMBER SEEING ANY IN STOCK WHEN I WAS A CHILD, BELIEVE ME I HAVE A GOOD MEMORY. I CAN REMEMBER TH PAPER DOLLS, WHAT D THAT TELL YOU AND I AM AGE 45

By: affrodite

affrodite — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:00:53 +0000

@Anonymous- LOL, I love your story! Good for your mom. Actually, you prompted me to think that it’s a good idea for children to play with dolls of varying ethnicities during those formative years.

Thanks for posting!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 06:04:09 +0000

I remember my white mother giving me an anatomically correct black baby boy doll that I carried around naked. I’m sure it raised a few eye brows in the mostlyl white suburb I grew up in the late ’70s

By: Fallon Hester

Fallon Hester — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:41:00 +0000

My mom didn’t place any restrictions on the dolls that I played with, but then again I don’t really remembering playing with dolls for that long [herein lies the problem with my childhood - I grew up too fast]. I do have a vague memory of my grandmother (rest her soul) asking my sister and me which babydoll we wanted and we both picked the white one – these were the babies that were so real that they looked like actual infants. I also remember as a little girl wishing I was white at one point because I thought my life would be easier. Heavy!

On a side note: One thing my mom did for us when we were little [that I think has molded me into the lover-of-all-people-person] that I am today is forcing us to color everything in different colors when coloring with crayolas (people, animals, cars, etc).

Thank you mother! You saved me ^_^

By: affrodite

affrodite — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:44:52 +0000

That’s EXACTLY the one that I was talking about! Thanks, Aisha!

By: aisha

aisha — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:57:36 +0000

I saw the PBS special where the child picks the “good doll” and the Black child always picked the white doll. then the interviewer would ask “what color doll do you look like” and the Black child would point to the Black doll, the same doll she called bad. Scary huh?

By: affrodite

affrodite — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:08:26 +0000

Thanks crazyforbarbie and Bianca for your comments and showing me some blogger love.

So far, I still feel like the only person on the planet who had this restriction. None of my friends had this restriction growing up and they seemed to turn out fine…I guess.

If the tables were turned and a white family was only allowed to play with white dolls, that would be front page news. But, I guess our history here in America coupled with the fact that there plenty more opportunities for the white community to find visual identity connections would make something like this essentially unnecessary.

Hmmm…at the risk of unleashing my inner geek, I can’t help but to think that this would be a great thesis topic for someone in sociology or one of the social sciences, or just a class project. Actually, I think there was an email circulating around a while back where they show kids different images and have them pick what’s nicer or prettier or something. If I find it, and it turns out to be what I remember, I’ll include in my upcoming follow up post on this topic.

Thanks again for sharing.

By: Bianca Reagan

Bianca Reagan — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:05:30 +0000

I had Barbies and other dolls of whatever color was given to me, including Hawaiian Barbie. There weren’t any restrictions.

By: crazyforbarbie

crazyforbarbie — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 02:54:38 +0000

This is a hilarious blog even if you did not mean it to be…it is interesting to hear how you remember things when you were little. I don’t remember having any restrictions of what type of doll I could play with but then again there were not alot of variety either like now…