Lammily, Barbie and Bonnie not to mention Do-Ann

Dolls...

Little girls everywhere play with them.

There's a new one out...Lammily.

She is not fat, but she's not anorexic either. It is possible, I read, to buy paste-on acne and cellulite along with her wardrobe allowing for her to have real-life attributes.

She promotes the idea that average is beautiful, combating Barbie's impossible figure. Barbie arrived on the scene just after I gave up dolls. I succumbed to buying her for my daughter not all that willingly. Her materialism was disgusting. Buy! Buy! Buy!

At least she had careers so there might be something admirable under that long hair and vapid expression.

It was worse when Llara was given Growing up somebody, maybe Skipper. When one twisted the doll's arms it grew breasts.

At the time I was flat-chested and twisting my arms did nothing to improve my bra size so maybe some of my disapproval of the doll was related to that.

My daughter was too old for the Cabbage Patch kids. A cousin looked at one and suggested Cabbage Patch birth control pills might have merit.


For a long time my favourite doll was Bonny Braids. Her parents were comic strip characters Dick Tracy and Tess Trueheart and she sold for $6.98. About 7,000 were manufactured daily. Two tufts of hair could be braided, although I wished she had an entire head of hair.

My favourite doll of all time was Do-Ann (ok, I said "not to mention" but I'm mentioning her anyway) given to me when I was six. She wore my three-year old clothes that had been saved in case I had a sister. My younger brother born when I was six, the same age that Do-Ann came into my life, had no need for them.

My grandmother made her. She was a cloth doll with yellow yarn hair and a half smile embroidered on her face.

She was named because I could spell both Do and Ann and not much more.

Do-Ann was for many years, my doll, my daughter, my friend, a cowgirl, a space cadet, a Greek little girl, a Roman little girl, a Princess, a slave (needing to be rescued), my student, a race driver, a patient in the hospital. Her thread eyes were always open requiring me to chide her to go to sleep when I left her at night, although I could never catch her sleeping, despite the many roles and activities she had undergone during the day.

Little girls play with dolls. In primitive societies it might be sticks tied together. In modern day ones dolls can get acne.

Progress?