cutting the doll's hair
Jan. 7th, 2009 08:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fleaCasper cut a doll's hair again last night, and she was upset that I got upset at her for it. As she put it, "It's MY doll!" It is her doll, but I find the cutting of dolls' hair, or coloring on toys, horrifying. I'm trying to wrap my brain around who's right here, and what I should do, since I think both of our viewpoints have validity.
As I explained to Casper last night, for me it is about respecting one's toys. I used the example of Sid from Toy Story. I can remember one time when I deliberately damaged a toy as a child - my sister and I used straight pins to poke holes in the breasts of the vintage Barbies we inherited from my mother, thus giving them nipples. I remember at the time knowing I was wrong (I was probably 8 or so) and have since read suggestions that girls are likely to damage Barbies in particular as a reaction against the patriarchy (stop laughing, it kind of makes sense!) The other times I can remember damaging something as a child were accidents, and very traumatic - I cut a triangular flap out of my hand-made smocked party dress by accident, while cutting princess crowns from paper (aged 6), and I pushed a rude playmate and her head went into the plaster replica of Greek horsemen from the acropolis that my mother had, breaking it (it was never able to be repaired (aged 8).
Casper sometimes draws on herself, and occasionally has drawn on her stuffed animals. Most of our markers are washable, so we discourage this drawing but have never freaked out about it. It's only recently that she has cut hair - in the last month she has cut the hair off a knock-off purple my little pony (basically a trash toy; I said that wasn't good but didn't make a big deal out of it), trimmed the braids on a Polly Pocket borrowed from a friend (which got a lecture about respecting other people's things and we went out and bought a new doll for the friend) and then last night she cut the hair of her 6-inch plastic Madeline doll.
Casper seems to feel that these are her toys, and she is free to play with them as she wants, and if that play involves cutting their hair, that's fine. The one thing I have impressed on her, twice now, is that if she EVER EVER cuts the Sasha dolls' hair (our special dolls from childhood, some of which she plays with in a special play space that isn't her room, and one of which I gave her at Christmas) they will be put away and she will never play with them again. I'm a little worried I'm setting myself up for deliberate damage with my vehemence here, and considering pre-emptively putting the Sasha dolls away until she is older. It would KILL me to see those dolls deliberately damaged.
Did you damage toys as a child? If you have kids, do they? Does Toy Story make you cry? What's your policy?
As I explained to Casper last night, for me it is about respecting one's toys. I used the example of Sid from Toy Story. I can remember one time when I deliberately damaged a toy as a child - my sister and I used straight pins to poke holes in the breasts of the vintage Barbies we inherited from my mother, thus giving them nipples. I remember at the time knowing I was wrong (I was probably 8 or so) and have since read suggestions that girls are likely to damage Barbies in particular as a reaction against the patriarchy (stop laughing, it kind of makes sense!) The other times I can remember damaging something as a child were accidents, and very traumatic - I cut a triangular flap out of my hand-made smocked party dress by accident, while cutting princess crowns from paper (aged 6), and I pushed a rude playmate and her head went into the plaster replica of Greek horsemen from the acropolis that my mother had, breaking it (it was never able to be repaired (aged 8).
Casper sometimes draws on herself, and occasionally has drawn on her stuffed animals. Most of our markers are washable, so we discourage this drawing but have never freaked out about it. It's only recently that she has cut hair - in the last month she has cut the hair off a knock-off purple my little pony (basically a trash toy; I said that wasn't good but didn't make a big deal out of it), trimmed the braids on a Polly Pocket borrowed from a friend (which got a lecture about respecting other people's things and we went out and bought a new doll for the friend) and then last night she cut the hair of her 6-inch plastic Madeline doll.
Casper seems to feel that these are her toys, and she is free to play with them as she wants, and if that play involves cutting their hair, that's fine. The one thing I have impressed on her, twice now, is that if she EVER EVER cuts the Sasha dolls' hair (our special dolls from childhood, some of which she plays with in a special play space that isn't her room, and one of which I gave her at Christmas) they will be put away and she will never play with them again. I'm a little worried I'm setting myself up for deliberate damage with my vehemence here, and considering pre-emptively putting the Sasha dolls away until she is older. It would KILL me to see those dolls deliberately damaged.
Did you damage toys as a child? If you have kids, do they? Does Toy Story make you cry? What's your policy?
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-07 01:45 pm (UTC)I absolutely howled at the time, screaming that I knew I shouldn't have let them play with my things.
And thing is, that's just my nature. My things are my things and I take care of them and expect others to respect them. They get one chance and that's it. And while I had an older brother and sister, I essentially grew up an only child and didn't have a huge number of playmates my own age, so I had control over most of my toys.
When my kids were that age, they weren't drawn to marking or maiming their toys in any way. I think we had one or two incidents of crayon drawing on the wall/television. They're far more likely to misplace things-- they're horrible slobs, than to destroy them. Of course, I was also Mean Mommy and didn't allow them to have scissors until they were old enough to understand that the damage they could inflict was fairly permanent. I also had a policy of not letting them use electronic equipment as toys (like cell phones/remotes/car remotes). I know a lot of people we knew thought I was the meanest most uptight person on the planet, but in the end, it's saved us a lot of heartache in terms of setting boundaries and knowing what's acceptable to play with and what's not.