This Christmas, we finally faced the dilemma that has become a rite of passage for thinking parents everywhere: to Barbie or not to Barbie. Our girl is not a true Girly-girl, and so we've had a pretty easy job of it these last eight years:
at soul-sucking department store
"Hey mommy, what's down the next aisle?"
(telltale pink glow searing my peripheral vision)
"Wow, look at this! Over here! Pretend bacon!"
Our girl is both easily distracted and a good sport, and that has served us well for many years. But we are also not unreasonable parents, so when she recently started trying to make Barbies out of toilet paper rolls and dressing them in Kleenex, we decided that the time had come to end our unspoken boycott. What's the harm, really? She's eight and a half - surely past the most impressionable stage, and likely to outgrow the whole thing soon enough.
So we got the least skanky Barbies we could find, and a little house setup that I have to grudgingly admit is kind of cool (a foldup toilet!). And we held our breath.
I guess my objections to Ms. B follow the usual lines - unrealistic body issues, limited gender roles, the way plastic crap begets more plastic crap. But it's also more general than that. I think it's the way that toys like this somehow pasteurize natural kid weirdness:
It's Saturday morning, and Barbie has the whole day to do whatever she wants! Should she:
a) Join her friends at the mall for a shopping
spree
b) Surf the 'net, then have some friends over for pizza and a movie
c) Star in a rock video
d) Start a goat farm with Eggy and Roundy, then save a zebra that fell in the collapsible toilet
We just keep on praying that our girl will keep on choosing option #4, or some reasonable facsimile, over and over for the rest of her life.
So the other day she came up to me with Semi-Skanky Barbie (not that we call her that out loud! no!) and a little stuffed bear she has had for most of her life. His attire resembles the A&W Root Bear but he has no known corporate affiliation. And she said this:
"Mom, I've decided that these two aren't married anymore. Now they're in high school. But they still love each other."
I love this unpasteurized girl.
~ René Joshi Sims of fruityfantastica
René's zig-zaggy art journey: a three year crash course in love, painting, and D.I.Y. at Rosebud, Alberta; Yale University's Summer School of Art in Norfolk; four hothouse years at Alberta College of Art and Design; a year-long mentorship with Canadian painter Eleanor Bond, and another year working on Chautauqua Stars for a Northern City, a public commission for the E. A. Rawlinson Centre for the Arts. The journey came to a juddering halt when René's son was diagnosed with autism. She recently returned to the studio after a six year absence, and is working on a show about healing, loss, and love that glows just hot enough to see by. She lives with her family in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and blogs in happy obscurity at fruityfantastica.
All proceeds from items sold on the To Haiti with Love auction go directly to the St. Joseph's Family in Haiti. To make a bid, simply leave a comment with the amount of your bid and your email address. The auction will wrap up on February 8, 2010, and winners will be contacted right away to arrange payment and shipping. Good luck!
Apparently I support inter-species relationships original stickynote drawing by René Joshi Sims (origin: Saskatchewan, Canada)
Starting bid: $10.00
In 2006, James Griffioen walked away from a career as a successful securities lawyer at a large San Francisco law firm and moved his family to downtown Detroit, where he no longer practices law but instead spends his days taking care of his two children and taking photographs. He publishes a blog about his life in Detroit called Sweet Juniper.
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