The Importance of Dolls

Jean Valjean gives Cosette the doll

“The doll is one of the most imperious needs and, at the same time, one of the most charming instincts of feminine childhood. To care for, to clothe, to deck, to dress, to undress, to redress, to teach, scold a little, to rock, to dandle, to lull to “sleep, to imagine that something is some one,—therein lies the whole woman's future. While dreaming and chattering, making tiny outfits, and baby clothes, while sewing little gowns, and corsages and bodices, the child grows into a young girl, the young girl into a big girl, the big girl into a woman. The first child is the continuation of the last doll.

A little girl without a doll is almost as unhappy, and quite as impossible, as a woman without children.”  (Victor Hugo, Les Miserables)

I'm reading through Les Miserables right now (The book so far is WAY better than the movie!), and I came across this quotation yesterday, and I must agree that it is completely true.  I have heard of girls who have little to no interest in dolls, but I was not one of them.  As long as I can remember, I have had a favorite doll.

I mean, I don't remember what my first favorite doll was.  My memory picks up somewhere with Alison.  I nthe picture above, she's the third Cabbage Patch Kid from the left.  If you struggle with left and right, she's the one with the word "third" below her.  Also, you should know that the Madeline doll next to her is the second Madeline doll I went through as a kid.  I kind of over-loved the first one, so she had to be replaced.  Anyway, my earliest doll memories include Alison; Amy (my Japanese doll); the first Madeline; Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy; and my Puffalump, whose name I've forgotten, so we'll just call her Baby, although I have a feeling Baby was someone else.  Actually several someone elses.  Also, I'm sure I had other dolls, but I can't remember them as well.

Super soft body; incredibly hard head in comparison

So, then I got Nicholas (labeled "second" in the above picture) when my first little brother was born.  And somewhere along the way for Christmas I got Get Well Baby, who may have had some other name, which I have also forgotten, who is not in the above picture because I think I had to get rid of her before we moved to Japan.  We kept her medicine and doctor stuff, though.  She was my favorite doll the week I had chicken pox.  Oh, and then Christmas of 1995, I got my last Cabbage Patch doll Nicole (labeled "first" above).

After we moved to Japan, I got Katelyn (a doll you could record voices on), Jocelyn, and one other doll who's name I've forgotten that was the type that peed when you put water in her, but my parents only let me do that once, which was probably a smart move.

I guess, in general, I just really, really liked dolls.  I mean, I haven't even gotten to the two dollhouses of my early childhood,

multiple Polly Pockets from back when they actually fit in your pocket,

 and Barbies that I didn't really play with a ton.

Ahem, anyway that is a really long picture introduction leading up to the ultimate level of my doll love.

My absolute favorite dolls were my American Girl dolls.  I got Molly when I was seven, and Kit when I was ten.

Molly and me

Kit

I mean, really, Kit and Molly were probably more important to me than all my other dolls.

The other dolls I used as Mr. Hugo described in his novel.  Or, rather, as a young child I played with dolls as if I were their mommy.  I fed them their bottles and changed their diapers.  I guess things changed after a while because I got lonely.  I didn't have a ton of friends after we moved to Japan.  I mean, I had a few, but none my age.  And then about a year and a half later is when I held Molly doll in my arms.  In first her and later Kit I found sisters.  Oh, yes, they were still dependent upon me for changing their clothes and such, but in this world there is a doll with long brown hair and gray eyes and another one with short blonde hair and blue eyes who received all the love a little girl who had no sisters and few friends could give.  In my imagination, they argued and agreed like sisters; they talked to me and listened to me when I would let no one else in.  These two dolls, although made of vinyl and plastic and cloth and whatever else, were my sisters when I had none, my confidants when I had no one else I wanted to tell stuff too.

Oh, during my Molly and Kit years, I picked up a few porcelain dolls, but Kirsten, Britta, Samantha, and Jolene (Yes, three out of four were named after American Girl characters.) never compared to my American Girl dolls.  I was absorbed into historical worlds that I still have no desire to escape.  My American Girl dolls are so much more than toys; they are my childhood.  They are what turned me from a child who knew little about the past of the world to one who loved history.  Yes, my dolls prepared me for motherhood as Victor Hugo prescribed, but through the company that sold me two dolls, I also bought dozens of books that taught me about my world both past and present.  Through a desire for a doll, I ended up gaining a desire to learn and, almost more importantly at the time of purchase, a friend.

So, in the end, a doll always has been and always will be more than a toy.  It is one of the most important items a girl can ever own.