Illustration by Carson McNamara
My mother, Carlesta Melvin, was a big fan of Barbie. A Southern Black woman who went to church on Sundays and sang in the choir; who grew up under the oppressive shadow of Jim Crow; who lived through the turbulent civil rights struggle, losing a dear cousin to the Vietnam War; and who was raising children by the 1970s, absolutely loved Barbie.
She was 12 years old when the first Barbie doll was introduced at the American Toy Fair in New York City in 1959. These days, when we think of playing with Barbie dolls, most girls have long moved on from playing with the 11 1/2-inch doll by age 12. But for my mother, the oldest of five children with a working mom, Barbie represented a world far removed from her own. Barbie did not have to worry about grades, chores or looking after younger siblings. Barbie did not have to absorb the limitations of Jim Crow or the crushing silence that accompanied the impact of alcoholism, domestic violence and financial struggles that outlined my mother’s everyday life. In sharp contrast, Barbie’s world was full of fun, fame, fashion, glamour and parties. During her teenage years, my mother collected several dozen Barbie dolls, nearly all of them white.
When I was about 7 months old, Ebony, a magazine started in 1945 to focus on issues of relevance to the African American community, published a special issue called “The Black Child.” In the article “Building a Strong Self-Image in the Black Child,” Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, a Black associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School who later served as faculty associate dean for student affairs there, offered guidelines on raising Black children with strong self-esteem. One of the photos accompanying the article was a picture of a young Black girl holding a doll similar in size and appearance to a Barbie doll. The caption read: “Black child with white doll symbolizes the ‘Daddy I want to be white and have long, pretty hair’ kind of self-hatred of some black children — a self-hatred resulting from the influence of white-dominated society.”
Reading the Ebony article today, I wondered if my mother had read it and what she thought about it. The self-hatred Poussaint alluded to in the article did not at all match my mother’s experience, and it definitely did not match mine. While my mother loved Barbie’s glamour and admired her beauty, this was not the primary reason she adored the iconic doll. As a child, Barbie was her escape from overwhelming life circumstances. As an adult, Barbie was similar to Mary Richards, the lead character on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” a representation of the freedom and independence my mother felt was out of reach. Barbie did not represent an unattainable European beauty standard that broke my mother’s self-image or made her feel bad about herself. My mother’s relationship with Barbie grew beyond the fun of her childhood imagination and evolved into admiration for the role model of a career woman who traveled, entertained and bought her possessions with her own money.
I grew up believing Barbie was a feminist. I knew nothing about Barbie setting an unrealistic standard of beauty until I attended a friend’s sleepover in the third grade. Another girl at the party told me that Barbie made women feel bad about themselves. Of course, I rejected this notion, wondering how a doll could make a grown woman feel bad.
Possibly because of that article — and definitely due to general observation — my mother was keenly aware of how our surroundings influenced the self-esteem of her children. Any figurines and decorations with faces on them, and even most pictures in our house, had brown skin, but they were not necessarily purchased that way. My mother kept a can of dark brown paint to transform our home decor into representations of us. Also, she mostly purchased Black Barbie dolls for me.
My journey with Barbie as a positive influence started one afternoon when my mother used Barbie to give me a preview of the future she envisioned for me. Holding my new pink Barbie Corvette, my mother attempted to put Ken into the driver’s seat of Barbie’s car, and when I noted that he did not fit, she explained why.
“He doesn’t fit into the driver’s side of Barbie’s car because it is her car, not Ken’s,” she said. My mother went on to explain that Barbie owned all of her things because she went to college, enabling her to have many careers.
“One day, you are going to grow up and go to college, and when you do, you’ll be able to have any career you want, just like Barbie,” my mother said. “And then you will be able to get whatever you want on your own, by yourself, and not have to depend on anybody else to get you what you want.”
Before this, I don’t remember my mother and me talking much about Barbie’s beauty. But after this conversation, while I admired Barbie for her looks, I mostly loved her for being a self-supporting career woman. And every time I got a new Barbie toy, I imagined growing up and owning the real version of the toy myself, from the Barbie megapool to the Barbie McDonald’s.
I still have many of my mother’s Barbies, as well as my own. I know, without a doubt, that Barbie is the primary reason I take pride in having a career and why I find value in being able to work.
And, of course, I like buying my own stuff.
Holly Rodriguez is an award-winning journalist and writer with more than 25 years of experience in journalism, public relations and marketing.
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