Well this is… different
The past decade had brought some fabulous new inventions. Gone are the days of clunky Easy-Bake ovens that didn’t even light up when something is cooking. Gone are the Puppy Surprises where the surprise was only ever that you got ripped off and received the minimum number of puppies. As for hula hoops and elastics, come on, what century are you living in? Jacks!
2012 is all about the Breast Milk Baby. That’s right. Why have a dolly that only wees and poos and burps when you can have one that attaches its little mouth to the nipple-flowers on your daughter’s (or son’s?) bib and suckles away? (Admittedly the baby then burps afterwards, WIN!)
Community reactions to the doll have been mixed. The general consensus seems to be “well that’s a little odd but whatever floats your boat”. There has been the odd cry of ‘that’s sexualising young girls’ to which we say, have you ever breastfed? There is nothing that makes you feel LESS sexy. Breastfeeding is about giving your baby what it needs: food. Not about getting down and dirty.
But now there is a new argument being laid out on the toy changing table: Is the doll insulting to mothers who either cannot breastfeed their children or choose not to?
Bottle-feeding mother Kitty Dimblebly in the Daily Mail claims that the pro-breastfeeding movement is so strong that bottle feeders are made to feel like neglectful parents. She claims that a breastfeeding doll is just another tool for the ‘Breastapo’ to brainwash children with a ‘breast is best’ message.
This is repulsive and disquieting on many levels. Not only is it abhorrent that little girls are being asked to emulate breastfeeding mothers when they are barely toddlers themselves, it also represents an unsettling form of indoctrination.
Toys such as the Breast Milk Baby are only enforcing the pernicious and widespread prejudice against mums like me who are bottle-feeding our offspring. And, believe me, there is quite enough of that already.
Top Comments
I agree that this doll is creepy, but I'm not exactly sure why I think that.
That said, normalising breast feeding again can only be a positive thing. Many people have said that a large part of the reason that many women struggle with breast feeding is because they haven't been exposed to it. 100 years ago woman would have seen their mother and aunts and sisters breast feeding, would have seen them struggle and would have seen them overcome it, and learnt to do the same because they had no choice. Now most women aren't exposed to a great deal of breastfeeding until they become mothers themselves, and while the doll is obviously not a true representation of breastfeeding, its a step towards normalising it, so women don't have to go hide behind closed doors to do it.
On a side note I don't understand why anyone chooses not to breast feed (I'm not including those with difficulties in that statement). I'm not judging, but as a currently breast feeding mother I know I just could not be bothered regularly stuffing around with bottle in the middle of the night. Baby wakes up, I wake up, whack her on the boob and I'm done. So much easier. At least for me. Stuff actually getting up to go to the fridge then heating it up. I can stay in bed. yay.
Ok so it has to be said.... What about all the baby dolls prior to this one that is given bottles?!?!?
We could start saying that it's an insult to all the mothers who choose to breast feed?
I think this doll is fine an so are all the other bottle feedi baby dolls of you don't like it, don't buy it!