From a WaPo article about the new American Girl dolls — Isabel and Nicki — that supposedly represent the historical era known as 1999.
Did you ever buy your child a toy that was really more about you reliving — or idealizing — your own childhood?
March 1, 2023
"Who are these dolls for? Little girls, but really, their mothers, who took their dolls to the American Girl 'hospital' for repairs, who lovingly brushed their hair..."
"... who still read think pieces on the Samantha aesthetic, or Molly’s potential sexuality or what their choice of girlhood doll foretold for their adult personality. (This author, past owner of a Felicity, was indeed a Horse Girl who 'grew up to have an affinity for lovely things [and] a possibly inflated sense of your own uniqueness,' as [the article at that third link] predicted.)
Her daughter is getting a little old for dolls, says [one mother]. But she might get Isabel and Nicki anyway. 'I think I’m going to buy them because I want them for myself,' she says. 'Having those dolls would kind of just give me a piece of my childhood back.'"
From a WaPo article about the new American Girl dolls — Isabel and Nicki — that supposedly represent the historical era known as 1999.
From a WaPo article about the new American Girl dolls — Isabel and Nicki — that supposedly represent the historical era known as 1999.
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59 comments:
No. I am an adult.
We all overestimate our own uniqueness, the trick is to ignore that fact.
And I still want to know what happened to my red rubber firetruck. Last I saw it, it was in the basement of my childhood home, plying the roads I carved there in the dirt, protecting the little homes in that little city from fires.
Train set enters the chat. ;-)
Did you ever by your child a toy that was really more about you reliving — or idealizing — your own childhood?
i have no children, so i can't answer for me.. BUT
COUNTLESS men have bought Lionel trains, and Flexible Flyer Sleds (and Red Ryder BB guns) 'for their boys'.
Then on Xmas morning, the boy gets to sit there, watching dad "set up" the train set, while the boy yawns
Having those dolls would kind of just give me a piece of my childhood back.
Or she could ride her tricycle to work ...
Learning new word
Retcon
Are these Mom reconning?!
We still have some of the dolls. I have a snoopy stuffy that is older than I am. Our 6 year old's favorite stuffy is BearBear, my wife's old stuffed bear. It has a band aid on it's forehead from where it fell on a heater.
Most of the new dolls and stuffies are probably nicer, but we don't buy that sort of thing.
Rock 'Em Sock 'Em robots, which, it turns out, are unbelievably stupid and boring. However, they have a cameo in the "Toy Story" franchise. When I gave my kids my lovingly preserved Barbie Camper Van, it was also echoed in TS. The toys of my era star in movies. I don't need to imbue them with emotions; culture has already done it for me.
American Doll is after my time.
Books. I bought books for my twins. (And maybe a guitar or sword or two.)
Lincoln Logs. They were not a hit.
“When I was a child I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things” [I Corinthians 13:11].
Mothers have long dressed their pets and toddlers in 'adorable' adult Halloween costumes. Elvis, Batman, fairies, etc. Some mothers go on to live vicariously too, putting young kids into beauty pageants or forcing them to join a band (e.g., The Shaggs), and now cutting off their genitals because they show slightly nontypical for their sex.
Only about 25% of the people at Disney parks are children too.
So are the dolls are going to party all the time, party all the time, party all the tie-yime? Or will they just party like it's 1999?
Back in the day, my kid had a couple AG dolls. I've always thought they were perfect grandmother gifts. The dolls might still be in the house somewhere, actually. Which makes me wonder: Why don't these mothers just give their daughters their old dolls?
On the Other hand, thirtyish Jenny Nicholson hasn't just loved My Little Ponies since she was a child,
She's collected all 5 (6?) generations of ponies from before during and after her childhood.
Of, course, she's a freak; a freak that makes a living on you tube BEING a freak..
and caring for her little ponies
By the way, did i mention that she's RICH? Because people (like me) give her money on Patron .
Oh, she's Also famous.. And Cute, and Rich, and a freak.. But i might be repeating myself
I understand that if you stick the head in your underwear it will cause a rash.
The makers need to do something about this.
John Henry
Pretty sure I can speak for the majority of fathers of sons, that just about every we toy we get our boys is an attempt to relive our childhoods.
My kid has millions of pieces of Lego and I think the saddest day for me as a dad was when my then 7 or 8 yo son told me he didn’t need any help building a complex Star Wars Lego kit. In the past I’d build right alongside him but going forward I could only watch.
Althouse asks...
Did you ever by your child a toy that was really more about you reliving — or idealizing — your own childhood?
I've bought myself toys that were more about me reliving - or idealizing - my own childhood.
Yes, my wife and i put a lot of energy into getting our daughter to love the things we loved when we were her age.
Her lack of interest in the joys of our own youths has been heartbreaking.
"Did you ever by your child a toy that was really more about you reliving — or idealizing — your own childhood?"
As a man with 3 daughters, no. I couldn't even get them interested in my favorite books, until some recent success, now that they are all in, or past college.
I think my wife took some some vicarious pleasure in our girls having actual Barbies and fancy American Girl dolls, since her parents only gave her the cheap knock-off versions of popular toys.
The pedal go-kart was not a big hit at our house.
I plan to buy my boys Hungry Hungry Hippos when they're old enough to be trusted to not eat the pieces.
And yes, it will be a way of reliving fantasies from my younger days of being a 3H World Champion. I was really really good too...I coulda been a contender!
I bought Uno, Parchesi and Trouble games for my daughter. I spent many hours with my mom and brother playing them. The games were fun and I wanted her to experience that. What it really is, is time spent with your kids, eating popcorn and pretzels, talking, playing and laughing.
I can still picture my late mother at our dining room table with those games, with pretzels and a cup of tea. I want my kids to have those memories.
My daughter did love her American Girl Dolls (Grandma bought them). She is 12 now, and had me pack them away. She is too big for that...
I bought my oldest son a Fender Telecaster and my youngest son a drum set, both of which I used heavily. Does that count as "toys?"
I can't say we did that, but our parents have done something similar to their grandchildren, saving the toys of our childhood and passing them on to the grandkids, and we're set up to do the same to ours. We have a huge bin of Thomas trains that we're just storing for the future, for instance.
Was it successful? Hmm. The Tupperware shape sorting ball, red half and blue half with yellow shapes that you poke through to the inside of the ball, that was pretty popular with our toddlers back in the day. They were initially enchanted by my husband's old Disney (and other child-oriented) albums, but the touchiness of using a turntable kind of took the gloss off.
Why don't these mothers just give their daughters their old dolls?
My mom gave my sister and me a couple of Madame Alexander dolls when we were kids, but it was clear that they were collectibles, not to be played with. We screwed that up too by getting rid of the boxes and messing with their hair and such. I'm just not cut out to be a collector.
I used to looooove a book from my mom's childhood called A Is For Annabel. It was an alphabet book with illustrations that might have been Tasha Tudor, about this amazingly gorgeous Victorian doll ("A is for Annabel, Grandmother's doll") with the most beautiful tiny accoutrements. F was for fan, S was for snood... Mom may still have that book. I coveted that doll and her kit more than I have ever coveted anything else in my life.
Update: yes, A Is For Annabelle is Tasha Tudor and you can still get it on Amazon. I will now spend the rest of the day trying not to do so.
I built an HO Gauge electric train set for my sons when they were boys of 8 or so. They ignored it and continued to play outside in the wonderful southern California weather. It finally occurred to me that electric train sets were for children, mostly boys, in places that had foul weather, like Chicago where I grew up. They are inside toys which have little use in places with good weather all the time.
Stanley Cavell on dolls (The Claim of Reason)
A doll has occasions. I am thinking of a rag doll. It can be happy or sad, fed or punished. In repose it has aspects, for example it can be seen as sleeping or dead or sun-bathing. But only if you do not know which is true. - There is only one who knows which is true, the one whose doll it is. And that one cannot strictly be said to know it at all, except as a joke, or perhaps as a fiction. - Why not? Because he cannot be in doubt about his doll's (inner) state? Of course he can be in doubt. He might take her to a psychiatrist. You might think he could not be in doubt, or be mistaken, because anything he says about the doll must be true. But he might be lying about the doll's mood, either to test the genuineness of my interest, or to deprive me of a relationship with the doll. - No, but the point is that anything he knows about the doll must be true, whether he says what he knows or not, and whether he knows what he knows by observation or not. - But isn't that merely what it means to know? And the question remains whether he knows, or at all times must know. There are criteria in terms of which I settle judgments about the (other's) doll. To know whether a concept applies I have to look - at the doll. I have to determine whether I can see it in this way, get that occasion for it to dawn for me. Otherwise I am only humoring the one whose doll it is. Perhaps I am tired, or have a headache; I cannot in any case experience the meaning of the words about the doll. The doll seems rags. I still know what a doll is; but at the moment I am doll-blind. Generally, if I care, I will have to justify my concept by continuing the doll's history: "I don't think she's really hungry. She got into the cookie jar earlier. See how sneaky she looks." I may scatter some crumbs on her dress to prove it, if there is something at hand I can use for crumbs. If I say "See. Now she's comfortable", something must have changed, or I must have done something, put a pillow under her head, or rearranged her so that she is no longer sitting on her foot. If the other, the one whose doll it is, tells me that she likes sitting on her foot - say because it makes her sit taller - and puts her back in her former attitude, then perhaps that is the end of this matter. At some point my say comes to an end. I defer to the one whose doll it is. If I do not, what then? Perhaps the doll becomes our scapegoat; cursed, and cast out. When I defer to the one whose doll it is, do I defer to his greater power? Power to do what? I respect his relationship to the doll, its being his. This need not be a matter of recognizing his ownership of it. (I recognize his ownership by, for example, not taking the doll from him, not without due process.) I recognize his authority over the doll, his having the last word over it; hence I hold him responsible for it. The most this demands is that the doll be (regarded as) his to play with, for a while, in a particular place. Even if he owns it, his authority is not unlimited; there are still rules in this house. Whether it is better for him to own a doll, to have it for always rather than for a specified while, or until he decides to give it up, or whether it is better for him or for anyone to own anything for always, are empirical questions, or ought to be. (We seem to give children an idea that someone owns their bodies. How, otherwise, shall we explain their having the extraordinary idea of feeling guilty for hurting themselves, even when the game they were playing was not, apparently, forbidden; guilty even for becoming ill? It would then strike them as a declaration of their freedom to say that they own their own bodies. But this would merely be an escape from one conceptual cell; or from a dungeon into an enclosed yard. Some are told that their body is a temple. That seems to rule out ownership, except perhaps by a congregation. But it is otherwise a dangerously open idea, especially concerning the conditions for admission.)
By the By: Please fix that typo!
By the By: Please fix that typo!
Seconded! And a cautionary tale for me, as I don't always proof my comments adequately before posting them!
I don't have kids, but just yesterday I went out and bought a cheap, used video game console to remind myself of my youth. I had just finished watching Stranger Things, in which the protagonists are the same age I was in the '80s. Fired it up and it's okay. A little too movie-like for my tastes. I'm gonna shop for some "retro" games today, see if I can recreate the fun of my teen years.
Typo fixed.
Homophone typo, the most insidious of the typos.
Rosebud
No. But at age 65 I gave my daughter, age 3, the wagon-load of building blocks I had so thoroughly enjoyed six decades earlier. They were a delight for years. Once again I'm cleaning them up for my son, who himself enjoyed them in childhood, so that they may be available for his grandchildren in a few years. The same blocks HIS daughters enjoyed.
The best toys are essentially both durable and timeless.
Oh yeah. I bought my kids Legos because I always wanted them when I was a kid. I would play with them as much as possible when I was at other kids' houses. My single-parent Mom didn't have a lot of extra money for toys so I didn't have any Legos of my own---plus I think that she didn't understand why a girl would want Legos.
Neither our son nor our daughter ever played with their Legos. Ingrates, I tell ya!
No, but I have pulled out several toys from my childhood and from my kids' and shared them with my grandchildren with great success. Everything from Tinker toys and Erector Set to Waffleblocks and Legos.
My father's O gauge trains are a permanent fixture in our playroom.
Anyone who says no is either a woman, grew up relatively wealthy, or is some sort of Mennonite or Puritan.
'Homophone typo, the most insidious of the typos.'
I'm disappointed in you...
I never had nor wanted Legos. Both of my sons were in love with them, so I bought them lots. Neither of my boys were interested in scientific or geeky electronic toys or projects, so I did not try to force them to be interested.
Hey, if I could find an Evel Knievel action figure with motorcycle and that spinny thing, I’d buy it for myself. I might let the kids use it.
I had all the Madame Alexander “Little Women” dolls and had them act out the books. And I work in film today.
Maybe it's because I was poor growing up, but I don't relate to this lady at all. My mom even saved a couple of Barbie dolls that my girls have played with, but I don't feel anything special about it.
American Girl dolls are very expensive, perhaps some of the nostalgia is due to how much a toy costs. Status symbol for women who are always on the lookout for a new status symbol.
We are planning on keeping the Playmobils and wooden train set for grandchildren.
"Did you ever by your child a toy that was really more about you reliving — or idealizing — your own childhood?"
Yes, and knowingly. When my kids were preschool age, I went on eBay and bought a Fisher Price Little People Parking Garage. This one. I have such vivid memories of it from that age. I don't remember it making much of an impression on my kids.
It was just cheaper to have another kid.
American Girl? It was just cheaper to have another kid.
Our son--an only child with lots of uncles and two doting grannies--never lacked for Legos or anything else he wanted in that line. When the video games came out he had all that too.
Most of my Boomer friends and our little brothers were model airplane (sometime tank or ship) builders and painters, but we were a minority even then, and I don't think anyone under 50 even knows such things exist.
People have recalled their childhood hangouts, and one of mine and my friends' was Mr. Page's Hobby Shop in Eastgate Shopping Center. We were there several times a week for years.
My son and I put together a 1/72nd scale Mosquito when he was about ten--my wife bought it for us, I was touched--but he never caught the bug (and I was over it--the mess of glue and paint).
Our Oma and Aunt Louise bought some Maerklin electric train stuff for us four boys, but failed to get a converter, so our enjoyment was short-lived--and I suspect they bought it because boys were supposed to like them. (Had to be a German product, you understand.)
My wife was the youngest of four (another brother surprised everyone later), and only girl, but never asked for or expected much in the way of dolls, and never had a daughter to spoil.
never lacked for Legos
Unstructured toys in development, good for boys, good for girls. Although, the bloc-iness could be a harbinger of judgments to come. I kid, maybe.
A couple decades ago, I had to stop in at a CVS to pick up something. My eyes were drawn to some bags holding 50 green army men, and I felt a strong urge to buy a couple, take them home and set up a battleground in some rumpled blankets.
Fortunately, the urge receded quickly.
I bought a Lamb Chop puppet for my daughter born in 1986, before the character was revived by PBS in 1992, even though I never had one as a child and she never saw The Shari Lewis Show. I saw Lamb Chop stuffed animals for sale last Christmas at my Walmart, obviously still evoking memories for Boomer grandparents. (For those of you born after 1970, Shari Lewis and her puppets Lamb Chop and Charlie Horse were introduced on Captain Kangaroo in 1956, and I never missed a show.)
Michael E. Lopez said...
Anyone who says no is either a woman, grew up relatively wealthy, or is some sort of Mennonite or Puritan.
Well I'm no puritan or a woman... I did grow up relatively wealthy, but not in the sense of having toys, certainly. Lot's of travel and hotels and dining out, but very few things.
My 3 1/2 year old grand daughter has a doll she loves so we got her a high chair and crib for the doll. She already has a toy kitchen and her other grandparents have a little stand she can use to help with cooking and dishes. She loves feeding the doll.
The closest I came was when I found a couple of large containers of Tinkertoys (the real ones, made of wood) at an estate sale. I sent one batch to my nieces, and the second batch to a friend for her little boy. They were a huge favorite of mine as a child. I spent hours goofing around with them.
I heard the AG creator is not pleasant.
What's a girl?
Hah--I came home the other day and my wife was getting ready to head out to drop some yarn off at at a friend's house. The yarn was sitting on the kitchen island in an American Girl bag. Brought back a flood of memories of my young daughter for whom her doll was a central aspect of life for several years.
It's never too early to learn to accessorize, as my wife says.
I have not bought a child a toy I wanted, but I was a victim of my mother's childhood doll deficit. I had one doll I liked but the rest just sat up in the attic in the play area where my mother left them. Oh, except the Barbie which my brother stole to give to his 4th grade crush. I didn't notice it was missing for a year.
I've known a TON of men who bought their sons "toys" to relive their youth.
In this case the toys were various balls and bats.
The guys were those insufferable bores that were convinced their 3 points and 2 assists per game would have led to a Jordan level career if only....
Glory days.
No, but to this day I keep my own copy of "Harriet the Spy."
And I will never forgive Rosie O'Donnell bringing it to film and casting herself as Ole Golly.
Of course. I bought my kids the dirt bikes I wanted when I was young.
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