A pregnant barbie....good or bad?

I just saw this commercial on tv and this is the first I've heard of them because my daughter isn't old enough for barbies yet so I don't buy them. But its a Midge doll and she's pregnant and she's married to alan and has a three year old son ryan. Well I went and searched and it came out around christmas and they were pulled from the shelves. Here is the article I found:

Pregnant 'Barbie' pulled from Wal-Mart after customers complain USA Today / AP ^
12/24/2002
AP Staff

Posted on 12/25/2002 10:48 AM PST by ex-Texan

Pregnant 'Barbie' pulled from Wal-Mart after customers complain

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — She is Barbie's oldest friend, happily married and visibly pregnant with her second child — and some parents think she is a little too real for their children.

The pregnant version of Midge, which pops out a curled-up baby when her belly is opened — has been pulled from Wal-Mart shelves across the country following complaints from customers, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday.

"It was just that customers had a concern about having a pregnant doll," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Cynthia Illick said.

She said the entire "Happy Family" set, which includes pregnant Midge, husband Alan and 3-year-old son Ryan, had been pulled from shelves of the world's largest retailer, which has about 2,800 stores and 500 warehouse club stores.

Illick said the decision was made the week of Dec. 13.

"What we try to do is listen to what our customers want," she said. "In this case, we decided to remove the product from the shelves. I think it was a unique situation."

Messages left for representatives of the toy's maker, Mattel, were not returned Tuesday.

Midge was introduced in 1963, a freckle-faced redhead and the first of a slew of friends and family members for Barbie, the blue-eyed blonde who appeared four years earlier and has been one of the world's top-selling dolls ever since. In Barbie-land, Midge — who, like Barbie, now comes in other shades — married boy-doll Alan in 1991, and the couple has a 3-year-old son, Ryan.

The pregnant Midge, who wears a tiny white wedding ring, has a detachable magnetic stomach that allows easy "delivery" of the baby, and comes with tiny crib, cradle, changing table, baby toys and even a tiny baby monitor. Alan and Ryan are sold separately. The baby also can get a first checkup from "Dr. Barbie," also sold separately.

An article on Mattel's Barbie.com Web site says the "Happy Family" dolls are designed to satisfy the desire for nurturing play by girls age 5 to 8, and can be "a wonderful prop for parents to use with their children to role-play family situations — especially in families anticipating the arrival of a new sibling."

The article, by University of Southern California psychology professor Jo Ann M. Farver, says the series "provides a way to talk about pregnancy without elaborating on the details a child can't fully comprehend."

Manager Bill Boehmer of the KB Toys store in Northeast Philadelphia's Roosevelt Mall said the doll was selling well there, and he had heard nothing but positive responses from customers.

"They like the idea that Barbie is a doctor rather than all three of the girls being pregnant," said Boehmer. "I've had people laugh, but I haven't had anyone say this was ridiculous or 'What are we trying to tell these kids?' or anything like that."

But at KB Toys in the Gallery mall in downtown Philadelphia, where the line that snaked around the perimeter of the store slowly passed the pregnant dolls displayed on the top shelf, reaction from last-minute Christmas shoppers was uniformly negative.

"It's a bad idea. It promotes teenage pregnancy. What would an 8-year-old or 12-year-old get out of that doll baby?" asked Sabrina Fagan, 29, of Philadelphia, waiting to buy a huge toy car because 7-year-old Khalil had made the honor roll.

"There's enough teenagers getting pregnant as it is. I think they're glamorizing it, and it's horrible," said Jackie Ellis, 43, of Philadelphia. "I work in maternity and I see 10-, 11-, 12-year-olds coming in pregnant — and they're crying because they don't even know what's going on."

"Most girls want to be like Barbie" or her friends, said Kenya Williams, 29, buying a life-sized baby doll and another gift for daughters Alexis, 9, and Kiera, 7. "Maybe if they would have put them all together as a family, it might be a little different, but alone it sends out the wrong message."

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I think the pregnant barbies are kind of cool. By the time the kids are old enough to know all about it, they will know better. Besides, look at barbie herself....she's got a new career every few months and she's been dating ken for like 50 years, a pregnant Midge is no worse than that. What do you think?

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