New Doll: Teaching Little Girls To Breastfeed

The Spanish toymaker Berjuan is releasing a breast-feeding doll that comes with a special halter top its young customers can wear as they pretend to breast-feed their pretend “babies.” The halter top has daisies that cover the little girls’ nipples and come undone just as easily as the flaps of a nursing bra would.

Though health care providers usually encourage breast-feeding as the healthiest alternative, teaching it to well pre-pubescent girls goes well beyond the good taste boundaries. Some would argue that it’s better than other dolls; ones that teach little girls that bottle feeding is the norm. I think both camps are missing the point.

I have another, more civilized idea. Let’s stop making dolls that teach young girls how to take care of babies. Are we not pushing these girls into earlier pregnancies because they are convinced they know how to take care of a baby, and because these stupid dolls don’t teach them that they need to wipe baby ass every hour on the hour? This romanticized notion of baby-rearing, is dangerous especially in underprivileged, less informed families, who are much more likely to have un-wed, immature teens who think they can handle it.

Maybe Berjuan’s next product will be a doctor’s set for boys, where they can give male dolls pretend prostate exams. In the same spirit of addressing important life issues through the mindset of a child.

Incidentally the baby name, “Bebe Gloton,” translates to “gluttonous baby.” I am undecided if that adds insult to injury here.

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