When I was a little girl, I loved playing with Barbie dolls. It was so much fun to have all the Special Edition dolls, like Halloween and Christmas. Although, sometimes I did always want to look like Barbie, but my mom told me it was unrealistic. So, I just enjoyed my imagination and carried my Barbie doll with me everywhere I went until I was too old and even to this day have some of the annual Barbies still in packages.
Recently, Barbie has released a new "Barbie" that will now have different skin colors, height, and even the "weight" on the Barbie itself. One of my favorites is having the acne and stretch marks, because those are things that us women just can't run away from. Everyone is so excited because now their children will not imagine themselves as this unrealistic figure. I've always been on the more curvy side, well Barbie now actually has realistic curves too! The new Barbies' even has new hair textures! It is like we are just selling mini people. Everyone loves this idea, but then as I sat back and thought about it, I am now enraged and will not be buying from Barbie ever again.
My main goal is to teach my children that it doesn't matter what shape and size you are because all sizes are beautiful. It's almost like this was the trick Barbie wanted us to think. What many are not realizing is that there are different doll sizes now, which means different size clothes. When I was a child, a Barbie doll was priced around ten dollars and had multiple clothes sets to choose from. Barbie has become less and less popular. To save the company, selling dolls in multiple sizes now means different sizes of clothes. Instead of buying a Barbie doll and all the clothes fitting no matter what, you know are only limited to one size doll or you have to buy separate clothes on top of buying the dolls.
This is more of a way to make more money, rather than to make the children feel better. I would want to give my child different size dolls, so she be ready for the world. The problem is most dolls only come with one outfit and we all know the best part of having a Barbie doll is changing a hundred times a day. With everything else being so expensive in the world, it is making me steer away from the Barbie company and going back to a one sized doll as sad as that may be.
I'm not saying don't buy Barbie dolls anymore, but look at the big picture here. Mattel created this new line of Barbie as an investment, this was their genius way to save their company and we looked right past it.