Did you have every piece of Barbie crap Mattel could come up with? Or were your parents anti-Barbie? Do you think it affected you? And how would you raise your daughter (or how did you raise your daughter, as the case may be)?

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

Answers

My parents didn't have a whole lot of money when I was a kid, so I usually got an older cousin's Barbie hand-me-downs. I had a big pink Barbie car, and a barbie townhouse made primarily of cardboard (it had a nifty little elevator though) and a swimming pool. I did awful, horrible things to my Barbies though -- I cut off all their hair, and pulled their legs off, and threw them out windows...

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

Okay, okay, I admit it, I'm not over Barbie.

When I was little, I had one or two Barbie dolls at most, nowhere near the number the neighbor girls had. I don't remember being really interested in playing with them either. I had trees to climb and forts to build, a bike to ride, and books to read.

Now, though ... now I have way too many Barbies. I think my obsession is more about costume than dolls. I love the idea that you can turn the same doll into different people just by changing her clothes. I'm a "real" Barbie collector's nightmare. All of my collector dolls are not only out of their boxes, but have been undressed and redressed just for the heckuvit.

I don't have a problem with letting my (future) daughter have Barbies. I think it's cool that there's a doll out there that gives girls a tool for pretending they're something other than a mother with a baby. I'd hope that my daughter would make her Barbie into something other than "Ken's fashion model girlfriend," though.

Hopefully, my collection of dolls of the world, legends, and movie characters (I don't think I have any just straight "fashion dolls") will help her to see all the diverse options available to her, rather than limiting her world to a pink dream house and a plastic convertib

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

I was not allowed to have Barbies, and never owned a single item of Barbie paraphernalia. This was foremost for religious reasons, as I recall. Barbie epitomized the temptress, slut, worldly woman that our Baptist church was opposed to, i.e., "little girls should play with baby dolls to practice at being mothers, not with Barbies." My mother was also opposed to Barbies whenever she would discover her feminist side: "I was the only woman in the engineering school at my university!" (Yeah, too bad she dropped out to put her husband through college and never went back herself cause she was too busy raising four kids and getting knocked around by Mr. Wonderful.) I find it highly ironic in light of all this that both my older and younger sister were unwed teenage mothers, one at 14 and the other at 16. Guess all that role-playing with baby dolls paid off.

I remember *really* wanting to play dress-up with Barbie, but then I also *really* wanted to sit on Santa's lap (Santa was forbidden) and do lots of other sinful stuff that other kids got to do, so who knows which particular deprivation made me the scarred and embittered person I am today (ha ha).

That said, I wouldn't really want my own (potential) daughter(s) to play with Barbies, but I don't think I'd take the hard-line approach my parents did. I would probably allow a token Barbie or two while trying to influence my kid to mainly play with other stuff.

Daria, Exempli Gratia, http://eg.dreamhost.com

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

My daughter is 11, and she has had every piece-of-crap Barbie EVERYTHING that was ever invented. And I've not bought a single bit of it. Between her father, her grandparents, her other grandparents and her aunts, she gets at least 3 Barbies and some Barbie paraphernalia every single birthday, christmas, and easter. It totally pisses me off, and I've declared a moratorium on Barbie and all her crap, but people KEEP SENDING IT. Last Fall I decided to clean out my daughter's Barbie trunk (trunk, HA. It's the biggest piece of furniture in the house) She had fifty-three barbie dolls, 2 barbie cars, a couple of barbie houses, and tons and tons of clothes, shoes, and other junk. I gave to GoodWill all but 10 of her barbies and most of the other stuff, and the kid HAS NOT NOTICED, I swear it. I'd love to go back to the days when kids didn't get so much crap for christmas and their birthdays.

Rant over.

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

I should confess that I do have a Barbie fetish -- I absolutely love the old Barbies. I have an old bubblecut Barbie that I've had since I was a little girl, and I recently rebuilt my favorite outfit for her ("Theatre Date," a white and green satin number that's to die for), and Jeremy bought me some of the reproductions of the old Barbies from the last few years.

I'm the opposite of you, though, Jenn, because while I can absolutely accept Barbie as a fashion model, I have a hard time with the idea that "animal doctors" and teachers, etc., ought to be parading around in cute little pink miniskirts and really big blonde hair.

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

Oh, I'm with you there. The Barbie "animal doctor" is just stupid.

I'm talking more about the potential for imagination than the crap Mattel tries to feed us.

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

I had Barbie, Midge, Skipper, Ken, the whole gang. Even a Barbie that had different wigs. I had the car and lots of clothes, plus many more clothes that my aunt made. My parents didn't get me everything I wanted but my mom helped me make clothes and furniture and stuff for them.

I didn't play with them in a girly way, though. I liked to dress them up and change their clothes, and I liked all the Barbie things like the dream house etc. My favorite game was to get them all dressed up and take them for a ride, then have them get into a terrible wreck. Or, I'd take them into the backyard and make them climb around in the mud or something. My mother and my grandmothers, especially, were always worried about me because I didn't play "nice".

I still like the old Barbie, but in kind of an ironic way.

If I had a daughter I'm not sure what I'd do. I wouldn't want to buy every piece of Barbie crap but that's because I hate the whole consumer system of having a lot of objects kids have to get to have the whole set (Pokemon comes to mind.) Generally I think it's better for kids to have toys they can make themselves and interact with in a more open ended way. If you have a basic doll, you can make her do all kinds of stuff, not just fashion stuff. But since I figured this out on my own, I guess Barbie doesn't limit this.

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

Ahem.....I pre-date Barbie. However, I am sure I would not have had Barbie things as after I received Fuzzy Wuzzy (my brown and cream teddy bear) for my fifth Christmas I never asked for another doll. I liked cowboy stuff..guns and holsters....filling stations, Lincoln logs, and I still want an electric train! I definitely was a tomboy. I have no idea how I turned out two totally feminine daughters who liked all the girly stuff, Barbies included. I even bought them trucks, Star Wars vehicles, and other boy toys, but they never got too interested in them. Most of their Barbies and Barbie paraphenalia came from garage sales. Most of it is packed in a big box in my garage with the label "Grandmother's box." It is waiting...... Some of them have the letters HOLLY emblazoned upon their foreheads! Actually, I really liked most of their girly toys....the cute dishes and pots and pans, dollhouses, etc. I must have had a delayed feminine childhood or something during my motherhood years. It was even fun to make clothes for the dolls...but not for Barbies....those are too little to be fun to sew.

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

My mom wouldn't let me have a Barbie, because she thought Barbie was sexist. (She also wouldn't let me watch Popeye cartoons for the same reason, which really infuriated me).

I guess I appreciate her stance now, but frankly, it did little to shield me from society's message that it is good to be blonde and thin with big tits.

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

Wow! My mom also didn't let me play with Barbies because it's an unrealistic portrayal of women. While I appreciate her stance now, I sure didn't as a kid, especially when my friends got loads of Barbie stuff. And I also don't think that it shielded me from the whole 'Barbie as the epitome of womanhood' idea-I remember thinking when I was very young that you couldn't be pretty if you didn't have blonde hair and blue eyes....

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

My Mom tried to get me to *like* barbies, because i guess, that was what everyone else's little girls had. i wanted to play with cars. :-) I wound up owning about three, two of which were not blonde, even though I was. Now I have two girls who absolutely *love* all-things-Barbie. My obliging mother tries to buy as much of it as I'll let her. (limit: one barbie per occasion) I did wonder if it was sending my girls the wrong message, so I went for a while eavesdropping on their play. They have invented:
Bungee Jump Barbie (look mom she forgot the cord! hahaha!)
Closely followed by Paratrooping Barbie...
Barfin' barbie, and her friend, Vomitin' Veronica
Jesus Ken, comes with cross & nails (so much for that Christian Education)
and otehrs....
We also discuss how they certainly are not going to look like that when they grow up!

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

I loved Barbie. I had Barbie, Ken and Mailbu Skipper, the estranged tan Barbie cousin who only came to visit once in a while and everythime she did, she got a hair cut. I had the Barbie Townhouse and sportscar. Plus, my Barbies even rode horses with their Australian cousins, Cindy. (Cindy isn't really related, but they were all the rage in Australia when we moved there. Once I saw how pretty the Cindys were, Barbie got shipped home in a box.)

One of my earliest memories is playing with Barbie and Ken as my mother sang, "Barbie is better than Ken." My brother shouted, "NO way." Then my mother would sing, "Anything you can do I can do better." It's no wonder that my husband thought I was a die-hard feminist when we married. But don't let that fool ya, every chance I get I take the Barbies and Cindys - even Ken, "The Fonz", Captain Kirk, and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz - out of their storgae box and redress them. They're all back in style with their really groovy 70s clothes. And, I'm still trying to figure out what to do with Skipper's hair.

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

I had a few Barbies when I was a kid, but my big thing was making designer outfits for them. I was a Dungeons and Dragons geek too, and my favourite doll was an Eskimo Barbie, who looked magnificently tough in her chamois leather "warrior" outfit (tunic & pants, full coverage, with a foil-covered toothpick sword; Superstar Barbie got to wear the Conan-style woven-wire and bead "mail bikini").

I think I inherited the dressup thing from my mother though; some of the things she made for those dolls were amazing. Lovely German dirndls, teeny knitted sweaters and matching socks...

But alas, I'm not over it yet. After a long search, I finally got myself a Tori Generation Girl, who stands on my dresser (she's the pierced one with the skateboard, my groovy alter ego). Bead Blast Barbie, in her handmade turn-of-the-century costume, sits in the living-room; I'm less embarrassed about that than I am about the fact that Allan admires the handwork so much he has to show all our guests her underthings. And Mulan, with her cool staff, hangs out (literally) in my office -- I haven't got over my warrior-chick thing. I tell you, if there was a Butch Barbie, I'd be first in line to hand over my cash.

I've got this project in mind; I want to do Barbie Through History. Costumes for the lot of them, starting with Ancient Egypt. Like I don't have enough to do in my real life...

But pink? Yech.

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

hey, i have that mulan doll too! with the weirdly skinny limbs and fake long ponytail?

i had some barbies when i was growing up, but i wasn't obsessed with them. i was a rather prim little girl, and one weird result was that i rarely changed their clothes around or made any permanent modifications to them. i had the barbie-and-the-rockers barbie, and a really old barbie with a dressy yellow outfit, and a horribly ugly malibu skipper, and some generic ken. i remember i had one barbie with tan skin and long black hair that you could style with some weird twirling contraption. i really liked her because her skin and hair were similar to mine.

i was more into transformers, though. poor wheeljack! damn them for killing him off in the movie!

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2000

I grew up with Barbies. No Townhouse or car, but I had this neat huge yellow camper. My sister wasn't into Barbies, though she got the horse, Dallas, and loved that. I don't recall playing with them, so much as dressing them up, styling hair, etc. I remember learning that curling irons and Barbie hair don't mix well. I had an old laundry basket full of Barbies, clothes, and assorted Barbie parts. I wasn't above Frankensteining the head of one doll and sticking it onto the body of another.

I've had a few odd dolls in my time. I had a Wonder Woman 'barbie' who was actually a bit bigger than Barbie, and black, if I recall. I had a Fonzie who'd do that little thumbs-up thing when you fiddled a lever on his back. And I had a set of dolls called the "Sunshine Family." I think they came from Germany, and were also shorter than Barbie.

I don't have a single one of my Barbie items from my childhood. Too many cross-oceanic moves caused my mother to get rid of them. But, my grandmother gave me and my sister each these old Barbies from the 60's. I still have mine packed away in her original box with her original swimsuit.

I still like some Barbies, but more the collector dolls than the everything's-frickin'-pink variety. My sister gave me the Romeo and Juliet pair for my wedding (which had a Renaissance-theme) and I've bought myself a couple of the Queen Amidala dolls (I know, those aren't really Barbies). Of course, I've 'devalued' them by taking them out of their boxes.

Btw, those oversized Barbie hair and make up things freak me out!

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2000

Ugh, just realized there was a typo in my email address..... Sorry.

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2000

Oh "Dallas" the horse! The Sunshine family! what memories those words bring back! I still have the dog, cat & two of the babies that came with the Sunshine family plus all their clothes, collars and bowls. Gee remember their weird fold down house?

I was sort of into Barbie. I had a couple of them and got the Townhouse for xmas one year. But I was more fasinated with my brothers' slot cars. I don't think my parents gave much thought to male/female roles & toys. I got dolls, my brothers' got Erector sets.

I have a 4 year old niece and she's big into Barbie, she even got some hand me downs from her 18 yr old sister AND mother. I just hope the Pokemon thing is gone by the time she's interested in it.

And if you think the Barbie computer is sexist - you should check out the Barbie Digital Camera. I have one (don't ask why) and the program it comes with is sooooooo annoying.

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2000

My Mother gave me some of her Barbies that were very old and I ruined them. I was a tomboy from hell and chopped their hair off. I didn't get much Barbie stuff after that.

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2000

Jai,

Yes! I had that fold-down house! I used to be annoyed, because the Barbies were too tall for it. I also had this neat pet house for the cat and dog. I was really terrible with my dolls. They had their hair hacked off, plucked into mohawks.... and those Sunshine Family dolls? I used to pop their eyes out, then I'd get freaked out over the creepy little empty sockets.

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2000

I begged for and received my first Barbie for Christmas when I was four years old. After having that wish come true, it never occurred to me to ask for anything else in the Barbie family and I think part of that had to do with the fact that we had no TV around when I was between the ages of three and five. I had no idea that there were other toys like that out there, absolutely no exposure to advertising.

My Dad's boss had two daughters who were in their teens and they looked after me when we would go over to their house for dinner and that is how I found out about Skipper and Ken.

When we left Paris, the girls gave me their 1960s Ken doll as a present. He's much the worse for wear now, but at the time I was thrilled -- now I could really do a Barbie and Ken wedding.

Between the ages of 6 and 10 I only asked for one other Barbie item: a Skipper doll. For that, I did chores and saved up 5 franc pieces so I could "buy it myself." It took months to save up the requisite 200 francs, but when I had it, I was so excited and got Mom to go to the store so we could pick out the "rest of the family."

Except that when we got there, _they were OUT of Skipper dolls_.

I was keenly disappointed, so my Mom told me to go pick out whatever I wanted from the store and she would pay the difference as consolation.

And that's how I got a Princess Leia fashion doll, who I must say has much more realistic proportions than any of my Barbies.

Skipper came along a year later for Christmas and now I could stage a full wedding/family dinner. My last Barbie arrived at age 10 from my old babysitter, Mary with a new wedding kit, including a tux for Ken. So I was REALLY able to set up the whole wedding thing now, including Mother-in-Law Barbie -- my original Barbie in her original wedding dress which now seemed hopelessly out of date.

So my collection never numbered more than four and I didn't have much in the way of outfits. I got a camping gear kit, complete with tent, sleeping bag and portable stove one year -- and as Beth did, there was lots of hot n' steamy stuff going on in that sleeping bag and anywhere else that tickled my fancy for that matter -- and my Mom would buy me an outfit or two and set my doll up all special on her stand from time to time so I'd have a surprise when I got home from school.

But other than that, my Barbie gear never amounted to much and I was _very_ careful with my dolls. They are a bit the worse for wear now, mostly because of my brother who would chew on Barbie's feet when given the opportunity and also delighted in taking her shoes and hiding them places.

This year I bought myself a "My Barbie" doll -- you know one of those self-designed ones where you can pick the outfit and everything, so I finally have a Barbie with dark hair, something that I hankered after, when those Hawaai Barbies came out with the incredibly long silky black hear.

I also picked up two Queen Amidala dolls and an Anakin Skywalker doll -- the grown-up one, it's a collector's item -- to go with my Leia doll, though I've lost her hair do-dads and her belt.

Honestly -- I can't understand all these little girls I used to baby sit for and their reams of Barbie dolls. It's like none of them care about the individual dolls, or embue them with a personality.

They're all generically "Barbie" (this from 5 different middle America households) and most of the games centered around "having a party" or "doing a fashino show."

Other than hot sex, my Barbies were also world travellers who got lost on wilderness treks and other whacky things.

Because I had so few of them, I was very careful with my dolls and valued them highly. My first Barbie has lost a lot of hair through years of combing, so I had to give her a hair cut to hide her bald spot, and Skipper's hair started to frizz on the ends so I gave her a little trim, but other than Ken's broken leg -- firmly held in place by a cast, he made an excellent invalid character -- my dolls are in pretty good shape.

When babysitting, the bulk of the dolls I'd see were a) buck naked b) dirty and covered with lipstick or crayon c) headless or body-less d) studies in how _not_ to tease your hair for a hot date.

Was I just a weird kid? I dunno, but I find the callous treatment of these dolls to be quite disturbing. If anyone had played with my Barbies _that_ way I'd have reamed them a new hide when I was a kid.

As for my kids if I have any -- sure they can play with Barbies if they want to, but I hope and pray that their grandparents will show restraint and not deluge them with an onslaught of any kind of plaything.

As my Dad is so fond of saying: moderation in everything.

On the whole body image issue -- I can't say I ever remember thinking about that with Barbie. I was more concerned with how to make her look pregnant than comparing myself to her. At that age, I was also convinced that I would look glamorous and fit into a Barbie dress just like hers no matter the fact that I had no boobs or hips to speak of.

There's just something about being a kid that lets your body image fit right into your imagination seamlessly I guess ...

Oh yeah and to wrap up -- my guilty pleasure wasn't Barbie, it was Strawberry Shortcake and I collected them gradually because they were cheaper than Barbies I suppose. Whenever Grandma came to visit, she'd bring one to add to the collection and I'd get one or two on birthdays, Christmas or Saint Nicolas.

And I _do_ have a smallish trunk-basket full of about a dozen Strawberry Shortcake dolls in my closet, carefully kept for my kids some day.

But my favorite doll always was, and always will be Crystal -- the french doll my father bought for my fourth birthday. She was and still is in many ways, the sister that I never had.

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2000

My mom made me pack up my Barbies and put them away when i was 13. She said I was "too old" to play with them. Luckily, my sister is 8 years younger than I. I played with her Barbies after my mom put mine away.

It still scarred me though. When I was a freshman in college I decided I *needed* my Barbies and made mom dig them out of the basement. I took them to school with me.

I had Live Action Barbie and New Living Barbie and Mod Hair Ken and Quick Curl Kelly and Fashion Photo Barbie. I had the Barbie FriendShip -- Barbies airplane, and Barbie's cardboard townhouse with the elevator.

I still collect Barbie and vintage fashions from the eyelash era. Those are my favorite dolls. (Produced from about 1968 to the mid- 70s.)

I have the Theatre Date outfit you mentioned, Beth, it's cool.

My favorite thing to do is Barbie rescue. I love to take dolls that a little girl has discarded and give her a re-hab. Even the frizziest hair can be brought back to life with a good shampoo and condition treatment. And, you can give Barbie a perm by dipping her head in boiling water. I use bobby pins or toothpicks or really tiny perm rods to give her a new look.

The Fashion Avenue line of clothes that Mattell is making now is cool and I like to dress up my makeover Barbies in those outfits.

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2000

Ooooo. I was *the* Barbie girl. It's funny because I grew into this girl who doesn't really get along with *chicks* (stereotype in use here) and yet played with the ultimate girly/chick toy as a child.

I had (wait, have) tons of these dolls. And accesories. Part of it is because I was really ill as a child and my mom showered me with oodles of stuff on what was supposed to be my last christmas.

I didn't get all the Mattel loot; the big ones I remember are the make-up head, which I probably trashed 'cause I was three years old or something crazy like that; and the motor home. *THAT* was the COOLEST. The rest was mostly the clothes and dolls themselves.

I don't know how it affected me... I know for sure it did bubkes to skew my body image. Barbie's body wasn't a "body" per se - she was a toy, an object with which to play - not something to ponder. I never saw her in relation to me - I was a person, she was made of plastic. It never occured to me to compare her boobs to my 5 year old chest. When I got older and I *did* notice how she was built, it just made me giggle that here was a girls toy made to look like a boy's porn fantasy woman.

I *do* remember craving lego's and trucks - but I played with them at friends houses. I did wonder why my mother never bought any for me, but I didn't ask her too. I was a pretty undemanding child - content with what I had.

I think I wouldn't care either way if my daughter wanted to play with Barbie's. I think I would start her off with all kinds of toys, both the typical *boy* toys and the typical *girl* toys. Let her decide.

Of course, I would also try to be a strong roll model, like my mother was, and expect her to try everything and not even consider the fact of her sex as either an obstacle or an excuse.

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2000

Now it can be told. I never had a Barbie, and it may have scarred me for life.

I don't remember actually wanting the Barbie doll itself. I was a tomboy, basically. What I really, really wanted was the big Barbie head, where you could style the hair and do the makeup and all. I remember seeing it in the Sears Wishbook. There it was, the big Barbie head, with the long blonde hair and big blue eyes. It came with curlers and makeup and hairbrushes, and I wanted it bad.

I didn't get it, though.

It's one of those things I can't believe I still remember. I don't remember being terribly disappointed at the time, but I must have been to still remember it after all these years.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

Laura,

I actually wanted the Barbie head thing but it was too late for me. I had already done the deed of the haircuts and my mom gave the thing to my sister.

-- Anonymous, January 28, 2000

I don't remember there being any sort of policy about Barbies in my family, but I do know the only one I ever owned was a birthday present from a girl in my class. I never played with it, either, it just sat on my shelf for a few years. I was a huge stuffed animal fan, but never much into dolls. The doll dilemma I remember was those Cabbage Patch Kids...complete with outfits and birth certificates and costing some ridiculous amount. My sister was invited to a party once for "Cabbage Patch Kids and their moms"...which sparked a huge family debate because she didn't have one. Apparently all the other girls in her class did, and although she even admitted she had no particular desire for the doll she also didn't want to be left out of a party everyone else was going to, or show up without a doll. I think often the pressure on kids to play with certain things comes much more from classmates than from parents. I'd never encourage my daughter to play with Barbies, but if that's really what she wanted I suppose I'd roll my eyes and give in and just hope it would pass.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2000

I received a Barbie catalog in the mail this past weekend. Not the play Barbies but the Collector Barbies with dresses made by Bob Mackey. (i think that's how you spell the last name)

I want each and every one in there but especially the Faberge one. How beautiful.

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2000

I had the creepy head thing. I liked it, for some reason. Maybe because it _was_ creepy.

I also had a odd bathroom-type room for them, with a shower or something. As for dolls, I only had a few (and they and all of their clothes would fit in a hatbox). I don't remember when I stopped playing with them, but I know I used the head a lot longer than any of the rest (I drug it out when I was trying to learn how to put on makeup).

I had a fair amount of Strawberry shortcake, though, and my real passion would be My Little Pony. I don't _think_ those contribute to poor body image, but I could be wrong, I suppose.

I think the influence of Barbie is minimal in light of all the other forces at work on a young child's view of the world. But that shade of pink is the cause of many nightmares.

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2000

I couldn't tell you how many Barbies I had, but I can tell you that my friend Aarika and I had quite a saga going on with them. We had one of the Barbies force one of the Kens into submission by getting him drunk on something we called 'Swiss Miss'. We had Kevin (or 'Corey' as we called him), Skipper's boyfriend, dress up in a blue and white striped dress and a red felt hat so he could run for help in disguise after Skipper, Courtney, and the little babies with the enormous hair and curved limbs ran away from home. We had divorces, deaths, marriages, break-ups, kidnappings, ransom notes, car wrecks, fires, burglary, tornadoes - pretty much anything that happened on "Days of our Lives" happened with our Barbies. I'm not kidding - we must have had 100 put together, and they ALL had different names. And we remembered ALL of them. When we stopped being friends in 5th grade (after a scuffle about who looked more like The Little Mermaid) our Barbies suffered a terrible division. I'm sure they're still recovering from the loss.

-- Anonymous, February 01, 2000

Oh, yeah, I had Dallas too, and about 600 other horses that the Barbies rode away on when they decided that life at the pink mansion was too much.

Somewhere along the line, I heard the words "benefit concert" and I used to take my tape recorder, dress all the Barbies up in their snazzy duds (the neon Barbie and the Rockers ones, in particular) and blast Whitney Houston and Bill Medley for the Barbies to "sing" on top of the couch in the living room. I'd get bored after a couple songs and leave the concert in ruins.

-- Anonymous, February 01, 2000

Late to the party, again...

I hated Barbie as a child. Everything about her. Swore if I ever had a daughter she WOULD NOT play with Barbies...

My daughter, age 3 1/2, is the proud owner of 4 Barbies, 2 Skippers, 2 Ken dolls, 1 Kelly doll, a red convertible 2-seater, a blue convertible 4 passenger vehicle, a bycycle with Kelly trailer, a swingset (for Kelly), and a mountainous collection of miniskirts, cropped tops, evening wear, shoes, brushes, and combs, for the above gaggle of dolls, not to mention the Barbie Fruity Colgate toothpaste, Barbie dress-up shoes (pink, sparkly, with white frou-frou feathery stuff on 'em), Barbie Backpack, and Barbie T-shirt.

What a sell-out!

-- Anonymous, February 05, 2000