I’ve said before that I have never been a girlie girl.
At recess in elementary school, I was the girl who was playing kickball with the boys on the baseball field.
Sports and games?
Yes.
Dolls and pretend crap with other girls?
No.
We always had big, Rockwellian Christmases growing up.
We’d go to my great grandmother’s house on Christmas afternoon, and there would be lots of cousins and aunts and uncles.
We kids were always excited for the presents we’d get from our relatives.
Well, being not a girlie girl at all,
one year I was a little disappointed when I received these from my aunt:
Yep.
The Sunshine Family Dolls.
I tried to hide my disappointment.
Plus, there was another present along with them, so I still had hope for something that was more in keeping with my interests.
I opened it.
It was a complete, handmade wardrobe for the Sunshine Family that my aunt had made herself.
In hindsight, it was very impressive.
But at the time, it felt pretty much like this:
Well, 35 years later,
nothing has changed.
There are lots of aspects of parenting that are unenjoyable.
But at the top of the list,
by far,
is playing with Barbies.
When I see Number 5 coming with the Barbies, I high tail it out of the room.
I pull one of those,
oh-shit-there’s-that-mom-that-I-don’t-want-to-talk-to-hurry-up-and-get-to-a-different-aisle-of-the-grocery-store-maneuvers.
Yeah.
Which got me to thinking…
TOP TEN THINGS I WOULD RATHER DO THAN PLAY BARBIES WITH MY DAUGHTER
1. Unclog a toilet.
2. Unclog someone else’s toilet.
3. Watch a UFC fight with my husband.
4. Have an hour long conversation with that one parent. You know. The one-upper. The one that no one wants to talk to.
5. Give the sex talk to my kids.
6. Give the sex talk to someone else’s kids.
7. Attend another 90-minute, 1st grade, Mother’s Day Tea (Sorry, Mrs. O).
8. Set myself on fire.
9. Watch a Power Ranger marathon.
10. Empty the dishwasher. Repeatedly. For 3 hours.
Here’s hoping for a Barbie-free day 🙂
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I hated dolls, still do, the smell of them made me nauseous. My grandmother gave me a very expensive collectible when I was about 5, I would stuff it in the drawer and my mother would reprimand me and bring it out again. Any doll ever given to me I gave away. I remember I was given a small doll, looked like one of the”Campbell Soup” kids (probably worth a fortune now) A girl that came to visit admired it and I gave it to her, everyone thought I was so nice. Nope, I just hated the thing and was happy to be rid of it. I never, ever had a Barbie and never bought one for my own daughter, who thankfully went for the PollyPockets and Beanie Babies.
Those sunshine dolls are CREEPY! I preferred stuffed animals to dolls as a child to the dissappointment of my mother, although I did have a couple barbies I played with on occassion. Your list of things you’d rather do is quite hilarious!
I love me some barbies…..I collect vintage ones and restore them to their glory. I also have almost every single barbie (and the contents of the dollhouse) I had as a kid…..waiting……for my 2 year old to be old enough to play (along with the “My Friends” dolls..Mandy, Jenny, and Becky…and all the clothes and handmade clothes….and the patterns to make NEW clothes).
You dont have to play barbie and be all “oooh barbie lets go shopping and then do our nails”…..my barbies lived in the 1800’s…..they had a maid….who got her head shaved because she didnt clean the house right (and then had to wear the bonnet of shame….that particular barbie ended up painted green and hanging in my high school locker…..) Your barbies can teach her barbies how to play soccer…or take them outside and see how good they swim…..
Am I going to see you on that show, “My Strange Obssession?” 😉
I still have my sunshine family dolls, in my hope chest. I don’t have the grandparents tho. I have two sets of the parents, the version you have, and a “newer” version. They were a favorite part of my childhood.
But I do not enjoy playing Barbie’s. I do like brushing their hair and changing their clothes. ha.