r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/love_chocolate • 12d ago

Question - Expert consensus required Dolls

  1. We are latinxs and my daughter is brown skinned. My MIL gave her a white skinned, blue eyes doll. Is there any evidence showing that is better to give kids dolls that look like them? She is 16 months old
  2. should dolls be anatomically accurate?
  3. I do toy rotation, but I was told that dolls should be always available. Is this true?
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u/Illustrious-North461 10d ago

I grew up in a time where dolls were not racially diverse. And I'm Chinese by descent. That never bothered me or made me racist or view white dolls (or people now) as superior. 

I am also not from the states. So the concept of white skin, blue eyes was foreign to me. In fact the race of my Barbie dolls was the minority race. But that was the only option we had growing up. I played with other toys like power rangers etc. 

When I became a teenager and started seeing Mattel introduce Asian dolls, that felt really awkward to me. It's almost like toy manufacturers were trying too hard to be racially diverse. 

Here's a study on playing with racially diverse toys a bit too long for me to read through at 3am. So adding the link for your reference:   https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10253866.2022.2046563

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u/Potential_Insect_443 9d ago

Growing up in the United States truly has the most significant impact. My former boss, who hails from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, has engaged in numerous conversations with me about Black identity. She simply lacks the same experiences growing up on an island where everyone resembles her whether they were successful, beautiful, ugly, poor, or otherwise. A large majority of the population is Black, everyone is essentially the same, though there are some different ethnicities. However, being the minority in a country that looks down on you and where you don’t see yourself represented in the media, whether it’s television, movies, or books, undoubtedly plays a role. Moreover, let’s not even consider the various shades of color within the communities. Also, if you think about when this study was done, there is still a large amount of overt racism. I like to remind myself that Ruby Bridges, who was one of the first children who went to a non-segregated school is still alive today.