How Barbies Destroyed Me

Little girls. Pink. Glitter. Dolls.

Little boys. Rough. Tough. Dirty.

When you turn on the television to Nickelodeon or Disney Channel every 10 minutes you will be ambushed with commercials advertising children’s toys. If you pay attention closely you’ll notice something. The object being promoted is specified for a gender and not only that it is showing the gender their role in society.

Let me explain what I mean. Girls are being molded to become moms, homemakers, and future wives. But what’s even scarier is that the biggest emphasis is that society has made a standard they must reach to be seen as “successful”, a standard to be “beautiful”. Toy dolls are all made to be unrealistically skinny and overly pretty. Subconsciously, this is setting a standard that young girls feel they must meet. They play with their dolls and create these happy lives for them, they day dream. They want to live the perfect life they envision for their dolls and therefore wish they looked like the toy they play with.

So now that the little girls have in their minds what they need to look like they go on to playing with their other toys. Their options? They have an easy bake oven, a baby doll, and a fairytale book. These simplistic toys are acting as drugs, poisoning the image of the girl. Fairy tales teach us that the first guy we meet will be “our prince”, easy bake ovens show us that we better start learning how to cook cause that’s all we’ll be good for when we grow up, and baby dolls show us that the dream life is solely being a mom.

What about other things? Why are girls raised to play with toys that filter their minds with unrealistic beliefs and limitations? Our generation of girls were made for so much more. I could take this a biblical way, but today I want to take it from a world view. We live in not only a generation but a nation where women are free. Yes, free. The jobs and lifestyles are endless. Girls can be lawyers, race car drivers, scientists, missionaries, anything they want. Yet they are being raised to believe that the “best life” is to be a mother and a wife.

Now I’m not saying there is ANYTHING wrong with being a mom or a wife because that is a huge blessing. What I am saying is why should girls be raised to think that’s all life has for them? Why don’t girls play with trucks to influence the possibility of working with cars? Or why don’t they play with pretend plastic workshop tools rather than pretend kitchens to influence them to enjoy engineering?

The same goes for little boys. Why can’t boys play with dolls more often? People often fear that if their son plays with dolls, he will grow older to become more feminine and they see that as a problem but honestly I think a boy who plays with dolls is more likely to have a greater respect towards others and be a more nurturing father.

We shouldn’t limit what children are taught, we should expand there options so they have a stronger knowledge of acceptance. Toys are objects, they are plastic, yet they have the power to form us into the people we become, as crazy as it sounds.

When I was little I loved “girly” toys, but I think they limited me to thinking I could only do so much. They established false dreams into my mind that I had to be married, I had to have kids. I don’t have to have that. I could further the kingdom of God in other ways. I don’t want to be limited.

So what would I say to the 5 year old me playing with Barbie and Ken? I’d say “Barbie is beautiful, but don’t ever feel that you need to be like her because you were made beautiful too. Don’t be afraid to play with the boys at recess, they might seem a little scary at first but girls can be just as tough as guys if not tougher, and lastly don’t be afraid to just explore life. You can be so many things if you set your mind to it and work hard enough, don’t limit the person you become.” We have all been placed in this world to do something, we shouldn’t limit boys or girls to the person they are meant to be.