Maybe I’m just a Scrooge about Black Friday. Usually I don’t even read the ads because I know I don’t want to deal with crowds. I’m firmly sold on online shopping. Last night I saw some ads, though, and was tempted—I didn’t know some things would be over sixty percent off!
Maybe this gripe comes from my general dislike for shopping, but I’m a bit skeptical of dolls that come with adoption certificates. The idea of taking yhour child to a toy store, wandering the aisles, specifying the exact eye color you want and handing over your money in exchange for the Cabbage Patch Kid and your “Adoption Certificate” proclaiming you a parent seems a little too weird for me. (A couple of years ago, there was even a story where the doll section was labeled “Adoption Agency” and the clerks “Adoption Workers”!)
I suppose the other side of the question would be that girls put their dolls under their T-shirts to have the “baby” grow in their tummies; they pretend to nurse a doll; why shouldn’t they pretend to adopt one?
I’ve written before about my growing discomfort with “adopt a road, zoo animal, etc.” I am not as uncomfortable about getting a pet from a shelter “adopting an animal”, since an animal does, for many people, become part of the family.
I do hope that the child doesn’t think adoption means they were sitting at a store or in a puppy cage with pleading eyes while prospective adopters walked around trying to choose. In most adoptions, the couple accepts the match with a child after they have photos, videos, histories and medical records of a child, but before the child has ever met them or been told of the match.
Also, kids know that other kids sometimes give away their dolls (or even worse, they sometimes leave their doll in the backyard, where she stays for a month until someone finds her much the worse for wear). Adoption is about our children, who grow inside our hearts and are part of our very being. It’s important and permanent, and it’s important to me that the rest of the world not trivialize adoption by using the word for things which are not permanent or things which happen without a great deal of care in the process.
Webkins stuffed animals come with adoption certificates and the user earns points on the Webkins site that s/he uses to furnish a room for their animal, buy it clothes and toys, and buy food to feed it.
I’ve just been told, though, that only one year’s use of the site comes with the purchase of the stuffed animal. After that year a membership fee is charged. I feel a bit ripped off—I’m supposed to tell my daughter that I don’t want to pay a fee, so she’ll have to just forget about this imaginary friendship she’s had for the past twelve months—“adoption” certificate notwithstanding? What does this say about the permanence of adoption?
Logically, I know that this is exactly how marketers want me to think. I know that my daughter will probably benefit more from imaginative play with the stuffed poodle itself rather than playing with it online.
My daughter actually doesn’t seem very upset, although she hasn’t had to stop playing with her online poodle yet—that will come in a couple of weeks. She has two more Webkins stuffed animals with a website code on them which she’s never yet formally “adopted” on the site. She says she’ll play with them one at a time.
I’m pretty happy with her attitude, if it really stays that way when she does have to stop playing online with “Snowflake”. But why do we adults feed into buying these “temporary adoptions” instead of just calling the dolls and animals toys?
Anyway, that’s my rant for today. This weekend I will reflect on one more consideration about buying dolls, and then I’ll have a positive review of some dolls—I promise.