Baby So Real

I came across this slideshow of the worst toys you could get your daughter. I am appalled that someone even invented such things, but it's even more shocking that some mom or dad out there actually thought the purchase was brilliant. Before you read further, please take a quick minute to check it out:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/02/worst-toys-for-girls_n_701063.html

This immediately took me back to childhood and my obsession with dolls. I had every kind of doll you could imagine. After I had made my rounds with Caucasian dolls, I told my mom I needed baby dolls from other cultures. It was shortly after this revelation that Ebony made her debut into my life, as well as my Hispanic American Girl baby. Let's just say I was Angelina Jolie before I had even graduated to non-cartoon underwear.

The doll that has probably imprinted itself on my mind the most though was "Baby So Real." I guess the terror that followed such anticipation is what makes this doll so engraved in my memory. I saw a commercial for this doll on television and it advertised that it could cry, move, and create facial expressions "just like a real baby."

I felt that I was indeed ready for a real child by the age of 8 so I begged my parents for a baby that was so close to a live one that it wasn't even funny. Fast forward a few weeks and it arrives in the mail. Put the batteries in and there you have your authentic mail-order child.

Nothing could have prepared me for what came next. I turned her on and much to my horror, it sounded like 100 assembly line workers were inside of her face working away. Each smile or blink of the eye was a slow, calculated mechanical process that would clank and rattle inside her brain. Her mouth would churn like a can opener and suddenly a disturbed cry would emerge as she opened and closed her eyes.

No parent could have foreseen that so I don't fault my parents in the least; let's just say her home soon became the back of the closet. It's hard to top the "Baby so Creepy," but the doll I received that came in a pregnant belly that you could later use to hide under your shirt to become "with child" falls in a close second or third place.

I occasionally walk through the toy aisle at a store just for the fun of it; it seems that creepy babies are being replaced with miniature teenagers with attitude problems. It's interesting to me how we don't want our own children to become brats, but we will gladly buy them dolls that encourage them to become one, too. I personally will not purchase a doll for my daughter that has lips that take up 3/4 of her face with its midriff showing.

I would rather her be terrified into abstinence with a terrifying baby that claims to mimic a real child.