The Role of a Mother

I'm a mother of three. I have two girls, ages 11 & 5, and a boy, age 9. I take this job of mothering very seriously. One result of that is that my children think I'm horrible. In this instance it's that I won't allow my girls to have Bratz dolls. They, in turn, think I'm an awful, old-fashioned prude.

I am happy to announce that the American Psychological Association has done a study that shows that Bratz are harmful to our girls. The study is on the sexualization of our girls and the effect that has on them as they mature. It's no surprise that our kids are surrounded by sexualization in the media everywhere they turn and that that will have an effect on them. What has always surprised me is that mothers buy these dolls and give them to their daughters without giving it a second thought.

I know the problems with Barbie: she's not a normal size, she teaches our girls that they should all be tall and skinny, with huge breasts. There was a moment after the Bratz dolls came out when I was excited about a multicultural doll that had hips and curves. I actually thought that no one would buy their bikini- and fishnet-clad dolls and they would go back to the drawing board, scrub off her makeup, take away the drug-induced stupor from her eyes, and give her some decent clothes, and that my daughters would have a healthy doll to play with.

I actually thought that mothers would be outraged by the clothes. But that didn't happen. Instead mothers went out and actually bought these trashy-looking dolls for their own children. So now, we have a choice between a tall, skinny, blonde who has some signs of intelligence (her careers), but who might give our daughters an unhealthy body image, or a scantily-clad sexpot whose sole desire seems to be shopping and looking trashy. Thank God for Groovy Girls.

I've imagined this scene at Mattell for some time now.

A man enters the boardroom to propose a new Barbie doll. "Ladies and Gentlemen, Barbie has held many jobs. Some have been very traditional roles for women: ballerina, fairy princess, chef. Others have been more traditionally men's roles: dentist, doctor, CEO. But in the past few years, I think we've seen a return to tradition for more and more women in our society. More women are staying home and embracing the idea of motherhood rather than career, and our dolls have reflected that. In fact, when Barbie's married sister became pregnant, she was embraced by our kids as a traditional mother and role model. Now I would like to see us take the lead in representing what women have really meant to many men over the years: Sexpot Barbie. We could plaster her face with make-up, give her pouty lips and a drug-induced trance, dress her in ludicrous outfits, and she could either work as a prostitute or simply be a trophy wife for Ken. After all, what could be more traditional than making women feel like trash, and passing that ideology on to our children?"

After he is laughed out of the boardroom, MGA welcomes him in with open arms, relishing the idea of turning little girls into sexpots, and showing them where a woman's place in the world really is. These men take Sexpot Barbie and run with her, calling her a Brat so that mothers the world over will be fooled into thinking that they're cute. So that mothers the world over won't notice that their daughters are being taught to wear the trashiest of clothes and focus on nothing but the next shopping spree. Because mothers the world over seem to have forgotten OUR role.