A doll for real girls?

I was recently bitten by the writing bug. I don’t know if it’s because I recently quit my job or because I am unusually annoyed lately which calls for an outlet to vent, but here I am. I’m sure not goal-set on blogging daily or even regularly. But maybe without the pressure to stick to some schedule, it’ll happen!

Onto what drives me here today: American Girl announced their 2015 Doll of the Year today: Grace. She is, of course, blonde with long gorgeous locks. We do own a blonde doll. Last year’s doll, Isabelle. And we liked her story plenty: a dancer who has performance anxiety and lives in her sibling’s shadow. Performance anxiety and living in a sibling’s shadow are pretty familiar life experiences for many kids. Similarly, we own and love McKenna, the 2012 Doll of the Year. She was a gymnast who struggled in school and also struggled to overcome some mental blocks when competing. A side storyline was a gymnastic on the team who really did not want to be competing but felt pressured by a parent. These, too, were familiar life experiences. These are experiences my daughter has had, has seen and been up close to or struggled with first hand.

Now there is plenty I’ve always disliked about American Girl. Like the price tag. The price of a single doll is unreachable for most actual American girls. And then there’s the lack of diversity. Last I looked, America’s actual girls are all sorts of races, ethnicities and skin colors. Yet, year after year, with few exceptions, the Girl of the Year is a Caucasian blond. And then, a final blow for many, American Girl announced a “rebranding” of their Historical Girls line which includes a phase out of some dolls. The historical dolls are the dolls the mothers of today’s girls grew up with, the dolls – and their stories –  many of us were anxious to share with our own children. The girls were more diverse, ironically, and the storylines more captivating and educational. First on the chopping block was their only Asian doll and an African American doll, not surprisingly. What kind of message does this send to our Girls of Color?

So all of those issues aside, I had hoped maybe this year’s Doll of the Year would redeem herself. Wow was I ever wrong. Grace, a stereotype if ever there was one, has a story that not a single American child that *I* know can relate to: She wants to start her own business but her parents force her to spend her summer in Paris instead. Starting a business is pretty awesome. I know plenty of kids with similar aspirations. But their struggles are more along the lines of finding a way to market and time to produce with busy school schedules. Not one kid I know struggles with resentment over summers in Europe.

I feel like society has raised a generation of bratty, entitled, self-centered, narcissists (this is a post that has been brewing for months…look for it soon!)  and if – IF – this book is something a child in our society can relate to,  every single parent should be ashamed. This isn’t a childhood challenge today’s girl is faced with! This is a reflection of a society raising children to expect the world to revolve around them. And I suppose the parents who rush in droves today to pick up the latest Doll of the Year are reenforcing that message loud and clear.