With gratitude to a distant cousin in Norway who posted this on her Facebook page. As a child, I had no interest in dolls. I played with my stuffed bears and lambs and my collection of horses. In 1959, I was just old enough to avoid being given a Barbie doll as a gift, but I remember both of my sisters having Barbie dolls. I'd love to see Barbie dolls transformed in this way. A Tree Change Doll would feel at home with my stuffed animals and my collection of horses.
Added thoughts: Thank you, Sabine, for giving me a different perspective on Barbie dolls. As someone who didn't play with dolls, I never understood what playing with dolls was all about, much less Barbie dolls. Not playing with dolls was one way that I rebelled against my mother from an early age. I have a vivid memory of my mother bringing me to a toy store and showing me shelves of dolls behind glass and suggesting that I choose one. I remember how angry I felt towards her that day. I refused to choose a doll. Now I'm wondering what that was all about. She loved her dolls and wanted me to love a doll, too, but dolls were not soft and comforting like my stuffed animals. I felt alienated from dolls.
While my sisters were playing with Barbie dolls, I was watching American Bandstand on television and listening to rock and roll music and dreaming of having a boyfriend who was a rebel who would "love me tenderly and always treat me good." My dreams were not of being a mother or a successful woman or even of being married, for that matter. All I wanted was a boyfriend who loved me. That would be enough. I didn't love myself. I could love him. Both of my sisters dreamed of being mothers, and one of them became a mother. Both of them became successful professional women, unlike me.
I finally love myself, regardless. We've all come a long way.
Here's my mother in Minnesota on a snowy day with one of the dolls she so loved:
Here is my mother a few years later:
Here I am with my father and Panda. Not sure if that is my first or second Panda. The first one was lost, and the story is that I was inconsolable. My father understood that I would not stop crying unless Panda was found, and he went out and bought another Panda for me. For that I am deeply grateful.
Something weird is going on here. I can't fix the margins or move things around the way I would like.
Oh well. I should be studying for the final examination right now. Come to think of it, I still do have my red horse. I can still feel what it felt like to hold him. I felt brave and powerful, loved and loving, because of Panda and my red horse.
