First there was Chatty Cathy, the baby doll who said “I love you” (or one of 10 other phrases) when a child pulled the string on her neck. Then there was Baby Alive, who chewed her food and soiled her diaper when a child pumped the lever on her back.
Now there’s Breast Milk Baby, who suckles and makes slurping noises when held close to the sensors in the strategically placed daisy appliques on a child’s pretend nursing bra.
We’re almost afraid to ask what’s next.
Berjuan Toys of Spain has sold more than 2 million of the dolls in Europe, where it was marketed as Bebe Gloton. Breast Milk Baby is now available in the U.S. for $89.
The reaction here has been about what you’d expect, given the cultural skirmishes that still break out from time to time over actual mothers nursing actual babies in public. Just last month, a Detroit woman was kicked off a city bus for breast-feeding her infant, and women organized a nurse-in faster than you can say “breast or bottle?”
The young mother was praised as “the Rosa Parks of breast-feeding.” We salute her and her cause.
But Breast Milk Baby gives us the creeps. There’s nothing natural about a moving mechanical mouth pressed to the chest of a preschooler.
Bloggers and cable TV commentators are all over this, and there’s a Facebook page called “Against the Breast Milk Baby Doll.”
The doll’s defenders tend to view it as counter-programming — Why do baby dolls always come with a bottle, anyway? — while critics suggest it sexualizes little girls and promotes teen pregnancy. Our gripe is with the toymaker’s pitch: “Little girls need to learn how to breast-feed.” No, they don’t.
Generations of little girls — and little boys — have engaged in pretend lactation, lifting their shirts to “nurse” their baby dolls, teddy bears or G.I. Joes.
They don’t need to strap on a halter with motion-detecting sensors in the fake nipples. They don’t need the simulated suckling. They just copy what mommy does, except that when it gets boring, which is pretty quick, they can just drop the baby face down in the toy box and go play with the Legos. Can you say
age appropriate?
The mechanics of breast-feeding can be learned on the job. Most babies know how to do it without any instruction. For moms who have trouble, a volunteer army of lactation consultants stands ready to help. Trust us. The “womanly art” isn’t something that has to be mastered before kindergarten.
