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Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Are American Girl dolls teaching wrong values?
While wholesome and sweet, they are quite pricey. What lessons are our girls learning from that?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In an unusual rant, Clark Howard went off last week on American Girl dolls. His complaint: The dolls and all their accoutrement are just way too expensive. He questions what we are teaching our children by buying them such ridiculously expensive things. (Check out the dolls and their prices here.)
His solution would be to teach a lesson about name brand versus generic and show our daughters how they can have a similar doll with similar clothes and accessories for way less than half the price of a real American Girl doll. (But would they accept that or be really embarrassed to take it to a friend’s house to play dolls?)
Hmm. Couple thoughts on this.
In the age of the scary Bratz dolls, the American Girl dolls are kind of a nice message. They’re wholesome and fully clothed. They like dogs, reading books and kayaking. And I do like that some of the dolls try to teach history. That seems all good.
Now I have never personally bought any for my daughter. However, my mother has. She went a little bit crazy at Christmas and bought dolls for both of her granddaughters and one for herself. (She loves dolls!) She also bought multiple outfits for each doll.
Although she wanted the wardrobe to hold their clothes she couldn’t quite bring herself to pay the price. She also loves the beds and kitchen furniture but so far has held out on that as well. She says there are no other dolls and clothes that compare to the loveliness of the American Girl doll (She hunted around.), but she does feel like she can get adequately cute furniture at a lower price from a different line.
Since getting the doll, we have gone to play at friends’ houses with the doll and I do question whether an older child (my daughter’s pretty clueless) would be embarrassed to bring on off-brand doll to play?
What do you think? Are American Girl dolls good in moderation? How many do your children have? Are they worth the money (could be passed down to younger sibs)? Do you buy the clothes and the furniture or try to get that other places? Do you think your children are aware of the price of the dolls? Do they care that they are expensive?
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