Barbie teaches Dad a lesson ~ January 7, 1993

David Heiller

Last Friday Mollie and I sorted through her doll clothes as preparation for an exciting time of “Playing Dolls.”

Don’t ask how my daughter conned me into playing dolls with her. Suffice it to say I made a promise and she held me to it, as seven-year-old girls are wont to do.

Mollie brought out a five gallon bucket full of doll clothes. I allowed as we couldn’t play dolls without sorting through the clothes. So we found another five gallon bucket, and separated the doll clothes into Barbie and non-Barbie piles.

The non-Barbie clothes had a lot of character. Blouses, dresses, caps. Some of them could have fit an infant. Many were home-made by a thoughtful grandma. I liked them. But they were cast aside by Mollie without a glance.

Five Barbies and poor head-less Ken.

We’re into Barbies at our house.

The newer Barbie clothes were just the opposite. They seemed like little more than tiny pieces of cloth with a button here and a fastener there. And I mean tiny. They don’t cover much of Barbie, and there’s a lot of her to cover, if you know what I mean.

All right guys, do I need to spell it out?

Mollie set aside a small Barbie blouse. “That’s Grandma Heiller’s,” she insisted. Don’t ask me how she knew that. It’s the same genetic ability that my wife displays when she tells me what dress she wore to a New Year’s Eve party three years ago.

The underwear on another Barbie, Mollie went on, belonged to Jennifer. Don’t ask me how they got on Mollie’s Barbie. We don’t print that kind of thing in the Askov American.

We found Barbie shoes too, little things that I confess I have vacuumed up a few times. We set them carefully into shoe holders in a plastic Barbie wardrobe. The wardrobe doesn’t stand straight, because it has three broken legs. Mollie told me that it was Mom’s when she was a girl. I didn’t know that.

Mixed in with the newer Barbie clothes were older things, gowns and dresses, yellow with age and use, a bit tattered and torn. Mollie informed me that those were Mom’s when she was a girl. I didn’t know that either. I’d seen them in Mollie’s room, but I’d never really looked at them, held them up close, like a seven-year-old does, like we did last Friday morning. It was kind of fun. I could picture Cindy doing that 28 years ago.

Back then, I wouldn’t give Barbie the time of day, or any other girl for that matter, including Cindy. Things are different now.

Grandma Olson working with Malika on paper dolls.
She had fun with Grandma,
but paper dolls were NOT Barbie.

I’m NOT a big Barbie fan. We’ve never even bought Mollie one. That too-perfect figure and beautiful hair get on my nerves just like a grown woman with a too-perfect figure and beautiful hair makes me a bit uncomfortable. I equate them both with vanity and materialism and other qualities that I can’t express but know I don’t like.

Cindy feels the same way. Yet she had Barbies and wardrobes and doll houses as a kid, and she turned out all right. So I watch Mollie play for hours with her Barbies, and I guess it’s OK. As if that matters.

AFTER WE WERE DONE sorting the clothes, the phone rang. I was saved by the bell. Mollie was invited to Kate’s house, and I wiggled out of my doll-playing promise.

When we were safely in the car, I asked Mollie how many Barbies she had. Six, she said. There’s the short Barbie, and the bald Barbie, and the one with dog bites on her stomach, and the one wearing Jennifer’s underwear, and Ken, whose head has come off. Poor Ken. The schmuck always gets lumped in with the women. I bet he doesn’t go ice fishing either.

Kate's fav!

“What about the roller blade Barbie?” I asked. She had just received it as a gift from her babysitter.

“Seven!” Mollie said happily. “I’m on a roll.”

When we arrived at our destination, Mollie and her friend started playing with a table full of ponies, purple with pink manes, or pink with purple tails.

I couldn’t get Barbie out of my mind, so I asked Kate how many Barbies she had.

“Three,” she said.

“Is that all?” I asked thoughtlessly. Kate gave me a forgiving look.

“But I’ve got 37 ponies,” she said proudly. That’s a story for another time.