The Stay at Home Mother

There is a new website that has been created by Mattel to spark the debate on what it takes to raise a girl today and how we can support today's girls as they move from children in to young adults.

The website is www.webelieveingirls.com. Of course - Mattel owns Barbie, who has been a role model for girls for the past 48 years and the question begs to be asked - how much as Barbie influenced the way girls see themselves?

For me - I have loved Barbie since I was a little girl. I had a whole world of Barbie and all the neat little things that accessorized her. I had the Barbie Hotel, the Barbie Sportscar, the Barbie travel suitcase (for all her clothes) and all the Barbie furniture. I think my parents must have spent a small fortune on all of the things I had for Barbie - but I adored her and she helped spark my imagination. Barbie always could do all the cool things in life. Barbie could travel, she could become anything in her life and most importantly - she always believed in herself, and so success always followed Barbie. (At least - that's how she was in my world).

I never saw Barbie as a bad role model or as something that was not attainable and therefore set a bad standard for girls growing up. For goodness sakes - she is a DOLL. And like all dolls and toys our children play with - poor self image and lack of confidence does not originate from toys we play with from childhood - it originates from how we are raised in the home. To me, its like blaming rap music lyrics for violence in the world - its not the reason or the root of why violence exists - its just an easy target.

Barbie does perpetuate the ideal of one type of beauty but there are also more dolls out there put out by Mattel that provides other types of beauty as well. Check out the website and give me your thoughts - there are polls you can take and a discussion forum to give your thoughts and feedback. I think supporting and listening to what girls think is so important and as my daughter (who is almost 18 months) just received her first Barbie two weeks ago - I'm curious to see how she will view her as she gets older.