Barbie

Yesterday when Cordelia and I were at Wal-Mart we stopped in the toy department. I thought about getting a little something for my valentines. For some reason one of the aisles has both boy and girl toys in it. As I was looking at Torii's Bakugan toys I noticed something in the Barbie section. It was a deck of cards with Barbie pictured and the saying "If you look this good, who cares if you're made of plastic." At first I thought, "oh, that's cute." Then I really started to think about it. There is no way I would want my daughter to have that card set. That's an awful saying. I wonder how this product got past all their marketers, testers and researchers? Remember when there was that talking Barbie and there was so much fuss because she said "Math is hard"? People thought it was a stereotyped phrase. If I remember correctly, Mattel changed it. You would think Mattel had learned a lesson. So how did this card set get on the shelf? Do we want our daughters to think that plastic surgery is ok, because you'll look great afterwards? I have no problem with people who get plastic surgery, but I for one will never get it. And I don't want my daughter to feel like she has to get it either. I will teach her to be happy with the body she was given. Not to say that I don't complain about my body, but I'm not going to fix it through an elective and risky surgery. Anyway, I'm not so uptight about it that I'm going to ban Barbie from our house. I'm sure Cordelia will have lots of Barbies. I had them too and some doll didn't shape my views on body image. And it's quite possible that the card set isn't suppose to be targeted to young kids as it was near the more expensive collector dolls. I just think it's a weird product to find in the toy department.