7-year-old Maggie gently picks up her brand new baby doll and swaddles her tightly in a warm, fuzzy polka-dot blanket.\u00a0 She tenderly kisses her baby\u2019s tiny forehead and serenades her with a sweet lullaby.\u00a0 Continuing to affectionately tend to the comfort of her make-believe newborn, Maggie lovingly removes the infant doll\u2019s soiled diaper and replaces it with a fresh clean one and proceeds to her miniature rocking chair, where she patiently and tenderly attempts to comfort her baby doll.\u00a0 Realizing that her brand-new baby must be hungry, Maggie carefully lifts her baby to her specially designed halter top, which has nipples covered by petal appliqu\u00e9s and sewn-in sensors to simulate suckling sounds, and begins to \u201cbreastfeed\u201d her infant doll.<\/p>\n
Maggie\u2019s new doll, The Breast Milk Baby, is creating quite the controversy and has received intense criticism since its introduction into the U.S. market.\u00a0 Many retailers are refusing to place the Spanish toy company\u2019s product on their shelves even more than a year after its initial release.\u00a0\u00a0 Critics claim that the doll \u201cover-sexualizes\u201d young girls and \u201cforces them to grow up too quickly.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0Bill O\u2019Reilly declared on his show, The O\u2019Reilly Factor, \u201cI just want the kids to be kids. And this kind of stuff. We don\u2019t need this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Berjaun Toys\u2019 US representative, Dennis Lewis,\u00a0says, \u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of support from lots of breastfeeding<\/a>\u00a0organizations, lots of mothers, lots of educators. There also has been a lot of blowback from people who maybe haven\u2019t thought to think about really why the doll is there and what its purpose is. Usually they are people that either have problems with breastfeeding in general, or they see it as something sexual.\u201d<\/p>\n Is The Breast Milk Baby an inappropriately precocious toy for our young daughters to be playing with?\u00a0 Or is the backlash swirling around this particular baby doll grossly misunderstood and just another symptom of how far off track we have ventured in relation to who we really are?\u00a0 \u00a0We walk past a mother cat nursing her kittens and smile at its sweetness; yet we exile new mothers to their cars, we usher them into private rooms, out of the public eye, covered up, to breastfeed their newborn infants in an effort to avoid offending others around her.<\/p>\n Is it heartwarming to stand witness to a young female, 7 years old, emulating one of the most beloved relationships of all, a mother and her baby<\/em>, a nurturing Maternal Being providing life-sustaining nourishment to a tiny new life, and appreciating her body\u2019s remarkable ability to be the source of that?\u00a0 \u00a0Or is it premature and inappropriate to draw attention to our daughters\u2019 bodies so boldly and unreservedly, encouraging them to express this aspect of their physicality so freely and perhaps in a manner that is too provocative or too sensual?<\/p>\n If it is the avoidance of \u201cover-sexualization\u201d of our children that we, as a society, are leveraging for, then why are the scantily clad Bratz dolls flying off the shelves and landing in the homes of so many young girls?\u00a0 \u00a0If given the choice to purchase a Fashionista Barbie or The Breast Milk Baby for your daughter, which would you choose? \u00a0\u00a0And why<\/em>?<\/p>\n The answers to those questions invite a conversation to begin around the issues we are not<\/em> talking about (sex, intimacy, and love), affording ourselves an opportunity to take a closer look at what it is we are really<\/em> afraid of and how those fears may be distorting our thoughts and influencing our choices.<\/p>\n Why do we fear our children learning about, talking about, and embracing their bodies, and understanding the purpose for which they were created?\u00a0 Why are we attaching the same thick layers of shame and stigma to something so natural and meaningful as breastfeeding that we\u2019ve sadly used to suffocate our own sexuality?<\/p>\n Dysfunction thrives in an environment of restrictions and conditions, where the essence of who we are is stifled, unexpressed, forgotten<\/em>.\u00a0 Love unexpressed mutates into a \u201cconditioned\u201d version of love.\u00a0 Sexuality ignored mutates into shame and confusion, rendering ourselves unable to appreciate and celebrate each aspect of our divinity fully, blurring the lines between who we think<\/em> we should be and who we actually<\/em> are…and what we imagine<\/em> is happening and what is really<\/em> going on.<\/p>\n What will YOU<\/em> do if this particular toy finds its way to your child\u2019s Christmas or birthday \u201cwish list\u201d?<\/p>\n (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation.\u00a0 She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at <\/em>www.ChangingChange.net<\/em><\/a>, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at <\/em>Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span>.)<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 7-year-old Maggie gently picks up her brand new baby doll and swaddles her tightly in a warm, fuzzy polka-dot blanket.\u00a0 She tenderly kisses her baby\u2019s tiny forehead and serenades her with a sweet lullaby.\u00a0 Continuing to affectionately tend to the comfort of her make-believe newborn, Maggie lovingly removes the infant doll\u2019s soiled diaper and replaces […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[157],"tags":[547,552,557,546,550,556,558,549,548,551,554,555,553],"class_list":["post-2470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-romance-and-relationships","tag-baby","tag-bill-oreilly","tag-breast-milk-baby","tag-breastfeeding","tag-criticism","tag-daughters","tag-doll","tag-mothers","tag-newborn","tag-over-sexualizes","tag-parents","tag-sexuality","tag-toys"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2470"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2485,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470\/revisions\/2485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}