My young daughter owns a Barbie. A single sneaker clad Barbie that sits untouched in the corner of our family room. The reason the iconic doll is even in our home is that she came with a trio of peeing and pooping puppies.
My 5-year-old doll-loathing daughter happens to love dogs and went gaga when she discovered that she could get her hands on a bunch of potty training pups. The only problem: In order to get a family of urinating dogs, my daughter would have to (gulp!) buy an actual (gasp!) Barbie (gag!) doll.
Barbie’s Potty Training Pups are not worth the $17 we dropped on them (but that’s fodder for another blog). The set is worth even less when your daughter wants nothing to do with the leggy blonde doll that comes with it.
I don’t usually discuss my daughter’s intense dislike for dolls, but I’m going public today after reviewing the results of a recent study, which reveals that doll sales in the United States have declined nearly 20 percent since 2005.
According to the study, young girls are distracted by so many other forms of entertainment (namely high tech “toys,” such as cell phones, computers, and other electronic devices) that dolls are falling by the wayside.
Evidently Barbie is getting the boot because girls are not into “passive entertainment.” Analysts reason that virtual worlds provide more stimulation than dolls, which require girls to use their imaginations.
GASP!
Use your imagination. Immerse yourselves in role-playing. Have we become that disconnected that the aforementioned tenets of childhood have become more of a punishment than a privilege?
The study goes on to reveal that girls over the age of nine only account for about 18 percent of all dolls sold in the United States.
I didn’t ditch my Barbies until I was in seventh grade… and now I have a daughter who wants nothing to do with dolls. Go figure.
Do your daughters play with dolls? What’s more, how old is too old to play with dolls?
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