It’s bad enough that little girls are bombarded with the unlikely and unattainable proportions of Barbie dolls and other knockoff dolls with long flowing hair, size zero bodies and gigantic boobs, but now they are also trying to brain wash little girls into mommie hood (motherhood is great, but it certainly isn’t right for all of us), and breast feeding.
Breast feeding, like motherhood, is an intensely personal choice for every woman. We should have the choice of breast feeding or bottle feeding, based on what our lifestyle and obligations allow, without society forcing their ideals on us or anyone looking down on us because we want the best of both worlds.
Breast feeding, there’s no denying, is healthier for your baby in a multitude of ways. It’s the most natural thing you can do for your baby. However, this is not the day and age where women are staying home and home making. This is women’s lib. There are more women in the work force than ever, and we often times now are the bread winners in the family.
Let’s see a guy whip out his breasts at work and pump away! I have digressed quite a bit from my original point, as usual getting on my high up soap box.
I was going to talk about the breast feeding doll, which is a doll that is being marketed to young girls that encourages them to breast feed. I think that this is still a little too “adult” for little girls, and it’s sort of depriving them of the innocence that comes with childhood.
The doll, which many feel is totally inappropriate for children (I share in that sentiment, although I’m sure some people will think I’m old fashioned for that), works by motion detection. It begins to emit a sucking sound when the baby doll’s mouth gets close to the child’s shirt.
I guess you could look at it in an ultra liberal way too, and think well “what’s the difference between a breast feeding baby doll and a doll that a little girl (or boy) feeds with a bottle? Aren’t those both, in fact, mimicking the way children are fed in real life?
I can understand that point of view as well. I guess that a breast feeding doll just takes some sort of innocence away from a child. It teaches her about a part of her body that isn’t even yet matured enough to do the thing that the baby doll is doing on her chest.
And, while I’m at it with my Victorian, uptight line of thinking on this particular subject, it’s just creepy. It’s one of those things that is creepy and you can’t even fully articulate why, and that’s why I’m against it.
