Possibly, my behaviour should have resulted in years on the therapist’s couch. I drilled holes in the chest of my baby doll with a nail, expecting milk to come gushing forth. It was disappointing, not just for the doll. I presume I must have seen someone breastfeeding and my vivid imagination drew conclusions from that.
In my defence, it was the year my mother died. I may have been distracted.
I never had a Barbie, but I yearned for any sort of doll with long hair to plait and style. Home haircuts stifled my own tress ambitions. I satisfied that long hair longing by prancing around in greenish "wigs" with luxuriant dangly plaits I’d fashioned from the binder twine used for hay bales. (My sister-partner in this fashion crime remembers our stepmother hating our hair’s enduring binder twine fragrance.)
Let’s just say I was a strange child and leave it at that.
It was not her impossible proportions he was drawn to. Rather, he was sucked in by the television advertising which convinced him Magic Moves Barbie could walk by herself.
It was rubbish, of course. Looking at ads now, I think the best she could do was push her hand through her hair, with help. I smugly used it as an example of the folly of believing everything you see on screen.
Years later, as a joke, I bought him a Barbie to compensate for my earlier shortcomings. She was soon dismembered with her head adorning the gearstick on his car. (I wonder if we could get a two for the price of one discount on the therapy?).
However, the doll came into her own when the Auckland-dwelling sister arrived at the Otago Community Hospice to present my husband Ken with Nurse Barbie.
Her appearance provoked considerable discussion and speculation about what Barbie got up to when we were out of the room.
Amid the laughter, there were criticisms, of course. Were the high heels suitable, and what about that skimpy outfit? Was it professional? Should that hair be sensibly tied back?
Questions may have been asked about the absence of under garments. The real nurses also knew there was more to the job than the debonair slinging of a stethoscope around the neck.
My sister insisted Barbie accompany Ken on his final journey — Ken and Barbie forever, as she put it.
I was concerned the hospice staff would miss Barbie’s glamorous presence, so I bought them another one.
One of the wonderful staff members took her on a holiday and sent snaps to me. When my own life seemed unreal, that bit of silliness made sense. It was much appreciated.
I didn’t give much thought to Barbie for a couple of decades, until my granddaughter got one. I embarked on knitting clothes for her. I was even given a pair of 2mm knitting needles for the job by my friendly wool shop staff as they, surprise, surprise, had a surplus of them they had been unable to shift.
In the course of this, I bought my own Barbie, purely to act as a mannequin for my knitting creations, you understand. She is Scientist Barbie, and she is a brunette. She came with eye protection (soon lost), a lab coat which ludicrously did not cover her dress, and a beaker hooked over one hand.
The hazard posed by her plastic necklace was slightly offset by her more sensible closed-toe shoes. One advance from Nurse Barbie; her feet were in the flat position.
Concerned about her lack of undies, I knitted some, but could barely squeeze them on under her figure-hugging frock. My attempt at a knitted hair net drew derision.
I had to admit it did not achieve the lab gravitas look I was going for, instead channelling Marge Simpson.
The two-for-one therapist might have something to say about my wish to make these dolls conform to the strictures of real life. Does it mark me as a control freak, lacking in imagination, or someone who thinks girls can’t really do everything on their own terms? Maybe all of the above.
Whatever it is, merely taking time to think about dolls, prompted by the hoopla over the Barbie movie, has been a welcome escape from the nasty fantasyland which is the lead-up to this year’s general election campaign.
I suspect I am not alone.
- Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
