When my toddler walks by with a naked Barbie doll, her
hair drenched and dripping, I know Barbie has been
skinny-dipping in the toilet.  Call it a mother’s instinct.  No matter what the circumstances are, moms have a way of putting two and two together and coming up with the exact scenario.

Too bad I’m not psychic.  Think of all the horrors I
could save Barbie from.

Like that time she and her friends had been
decapitated and Mom had to discern which head belonged
to which doll.  What is it with boys and decapitation?
My girls look at a Barbie and they see a mother, a
teacher, a nurse or some other role they would like to
play.  My sons look at a Barbie and they see an
opportunity to pull somebody’s legs, arms and head off
and hide them in various places around the house.  Is
this early serial killer play?

I hope not.

Still, I can imagine that Barbie and her friends are
terrified of being discovered by one of the boys.  Who
knows when the dolls will be jammed into a too-small
car, wearing only a knotted scarf and a single red
boot, and sent hurtling down the hallway where they
will smash headlong into the wall?  No crash dummy
ever had it so rough.

But this doesn’t just happen in my house.  A friend of
mine described a day when she was cleaning her home in
the anticipation of company and at the last moment
found Barbie and several of her friends, naked and
dangling helplessly in the Ficus tree.

Now some moms will not allow their girls to play with
Barbie dolls.  They don’t want their girls to grow up
thinking that the ideal woman is twelve inches tall
with a four-inch bust and a waist to match.  But my
sisters and I are living proof that girls can play
with Barbie dolls and aspire to a much larger bust
measurement.

Our minds were never narrowed by Barbie’s perfect
image.

In fact, when one of our Barbie dolls lost an arm or
leg or suffered a broken neck, they were mended as
well as we could manage and they remained a part of
the Barbie clan.  As children, we opened the doors of
equality and paved the way for handicapped Barbie
dolls of every color, size and shape…and that
translated into our character and attitude later in
life.  

My girls do that with their own dolls.  Barbie really
brings out their nurturing side.

Suddenly, I hear the predictable cry of outrage as
another Barbie is discovered dismembered and buried in
a shallow grave of Legos.  It looks like my daughters
will have a lot more nurturing to do real soon.