Are the Women who buy these realistic baby dolls normal?
Some months back I turned on our television and inadvetantly ended up watching a documentary about women who in general, have no children of their own, but have an obsession with buying these incredibly expensive baby dolls that are the spitting image of a real child. What I found particularly strange about this was the fact many of these women were more than capable of bearing children themselves, but freely admitted they preferred the lack of demands placed on them by a "fake baby".
The weirdness got weirder though, as I watched in fascination as women pushed these dolls around the park in buggies, allowing people to admire their "baby", without letting on that it wasn't a real baby.
It was about to get stranger still though......
One lady had looked after her baby grandson in order to help out the parents. When the parents decided to immigrate to a different country (I wonder why!!), she was so distraught she paid thousands of pounds simply to have a certain company make a replica of the lad as a baby. Years later, when the boy was now some years older, she was still mothering this replica baby as if it was her Grandson, (to be honest she now seemed more interested in the doll than her real grandson!), she even named the doll with the same name as her Grandson.
The next lady featured had literally built up a huge collection of these "dolls", all with names, and all treated like real children. I am talking twenty or thirty plus of these too, not a handful.
One woman's Husband was asked what he thought, and you could see he was rather freaked out by it all, but trying to be supportive to his Wife. I actually don't recall any men in the program finding this normal, or partaking equally in the enthusiasm their partners had.
In one sad case, a lady had lost her baby, and had arranged for a replica to be made based on a photograph. Although I felt for her, I couldn't help wondering if this was healthy or not, and if it was quite possibly preventing her from grieving and recovering as she should. It felt like she needed beravement counselling, not a fake version of her original baby.
Yet another woman had already built up a huge collection of these dolls, and had now been shopping online for her latest one. she lived in the UK, but rather than have the "baby" posted to her, she took herself and her adult daughter all the way to the USA to collect the doll in person. They booked into a hotel, and awaited delivery of the new baby. When it arrived it was all wrapped up in tissue paper etc and in a large cardboard box. Neither her or the daughter could have been more excited if they had been expecting a real baby, and they had already bought new clothes for her etc etc.
Upon delivery they carefully unpacked it and immediately found a fault with the doll, (for the life of me now it escapes me what the fault was, suffice to say it was quite trivial). They were so upset, and bearing in mind they had already been waiting weeks for this doll to be ready, they were going to have to return to the UK empty handed whilst they waited for a replacement to be made. Oh, and the price of this doll.... well if i am correct in my recollection it was over $30,000, (plus flights, plus hotel etc). To me this is very much like an illness, and I pitied her poor Husband working his socks off to pay for over priced, but realistic looking babies. To say the least he must have been incredibly tolerant!
So what do you think?
Would you buy one of these dolls?
Do you think it is normal to behave like these women do?
Please vote in the poll below.
Comments
Cindy Lawson (author) from Guernsey (Channel Islands) on July 17, 2018:
Lol, great comment Mel-Kav, take her out and show her off
mel-kav on July 16, 2018:
Oh my gosh - some of these stories are hilarious! Several years ago, I bought one simply because it had the same name as my daughter. I did unpack it and look at it, then I put it back in the box. The poor thing has been in the box for about 10 years. I guess I should take it out for a little stroll. LOL!
