Why Baby Dolls? Part 2: Imagining a Better World

In Part 1, I talked about how I got into baby dolls. In this post, I’ll talk about my experiences with a life-sized baby doll. I’ll also discuss what makes baby doll play fun for me, and why I think it has the power to subvert misogyny, ableism, and homophobia.

Before I get into why I have baby dolls, I’d like to talk about what are not the reasons I have baby dolls. As I mentioned in my last post, baby dolls aren’t popular with other doll collectors. They make some people uncomfortable. There’s the uncanny valley feeling associated with a life-sized, realistic doll; I totally understand that. But I also think there’s a set of assumptions people—even fellow doll collectors—make when they see someone getting enthusiastic about baby dolls.

First, they assume you have baby fever. I don’t even understand what baby fever means. I can’t imagine what it feels like, so I think it’s safe to say I don’t have it. When I started collecting American Girl dolls, I don’t think anyone assumed that I was longing for an 8- to 12-year-old child to raise. But in many people’s minds, baby dolls are synonymous with desire for real babies.

Second and relatedly, people assume that baby dolls mean you’ve lost interest in all other aspects of your doll hobby. This one puzzled me at first: if I get a new doll, doesn’t it mean I’m enthusiastic about my hobby generally? But then I realized it’s an extension of a particular form of misogyny. Our culture assumes that all women wait longingly for the day we begin popping out babies. Furthermore, it assumes that motherhood is personality death. When you become a mother, the stereotype goes, you cease to be interested in anything but your baby. If baby dolls equal longing for a real baby, then of course the next step is kissing your hobbies and interests goodbye.

Third, people often make assumptions about baby doll collectors’ mental health. I’m not even talking about the mean YouTube commenters who scream that reborn collectors need to be admitted to psychiatric hospitals. Even well-meaning, curious people sometimes assume that baby dolls are intended to fill a void or mitigate a mental illness. Sometimes that’s true! If reborn dolls are familiar outside the doll collecting community, it’s because of their function as comfort objects for individuals with dementia or those mourning infertility or the loss of a pregnancy or infant. Many collectors also find that holding a realistic baby doll has a positive impact on their mental health. Interest in reborn dolls doesn’t necessarily equate to grief or anxiety, though.

It’s critical to point out that women without children and individuals who experience mental illness are stigmatized in our culture. This is illustrated so well by those mean YouTube commenters I mentioned. The concept of baby doll collecting makes some people furious. Their overwrought arguments—that collectors need psychiatric intervention, that they can’t distinguish fantasy from reality, that their hobby is pathologically selfish, that they should throw away their dolls and adopt real infants in need—betray their prejudice against anyone who steps outside the patriarchal paradigm by playing with fake babies instead of raising real ones. They rail against anyone who openly combats symptoms of mental illness with a tangible comfort object, and they further demonize mental illness by using it as an insult. When it comes to hatred of baby doll collectors, make no mistake: sexism and ableism are at the root of the vitriol. I think they’re at the root of the less overt, garden-variety discomfort, too.

While we’re on the subject of assumptions, I should note that it’s often assumed—from within the community and without—that all baby doll collectors are female. Angry YouTube commenters refer to us as “crazy women,” and a dismal number of reborn collectors begin their posts or videos with “Hey, ladies!” There are male and nonbinary baby doll enthusiasts, of course, but they sometimes face invisibility or erasure.

Anyway, I’m not interested in baby dolls because I’m longing for real babies, because baby dolls are replacing all my other hobbies, or because I’m using them to soothe anxiety. If you have baby dolls for any of these reasons, that’s cool! I just want people to be aware that there are many reasons that someone might be interested in baby dolls.

For me, the appeal of baby dolls is threefold: they allow me to play around with a new aesthetic, they transform my mundane environment into something more fun, and they provide an opportunity to create an imaginative narrative with me in it.

I relate to all my dolls in two main ways: photography and storytelling. (I hope to make crafting a bigger part of the picture.) I enjoy developing a consistent photography style that takes into account the principles of design and showcases my collection in a creative, engaging way. I appreciate multiple aesthetics and welcome opportunities to strive toward multiple artistic goals. With my 18” dolls, I create a cheerful colorful look that features the natural world. With baby dolls, I strive for a pastel kawaii look. When I get a hand-painted reborn doll, I plan to explore a dark, witchy, fantasy look. I enjoy brainstorming ways to stretch my creativity and create something totally new. (Stay tuned for a post on developing an original photography style!)

Another fun thing about baby dolls, particularly life-sized realistic baby dolls, is how they transform my environment. Baby dolls don’t take the place of a real baby for me; instead, they make real baby stuff feel like doll stuff. I love doll shopping, so it was pretty thrilling the first time I walked into the boring drugstore and realized there’s a whole isle of “doll stuff” in it. Trips to the drugstore, grocery store, and secondhand clothing store can now turn into doll shopping experiences because Tabitha wears real baby clothes and uses real baby accessories. It’s not quite as fun as a visit to an American Girl store, but it’s a lot more fun than it used to be.

Finally, baby dolls offer me an opportunity to create stories with me in them. When I come up with stories for my other dolls, I don’t put myself in their world. They exist in their own universe and only interact with my other dolls of the same scale. I like it that way. But with baby dolls, a caretaker is a necessary character in any story, and I find it fun to imagine that that caretaker is me. I don’t just make up stories where I’m “mommy.” In one story, I might be a witch who lives alone until a mysterious stranger leaves a baby on my doorstep. In another, I might be advisor to the king, raising his daughter the princess in secret to protect her from a rival for the throne. In another, I might be mother to a half-elven child whose father couldn’t care for him due to anti-human prejudice in his community. In another, I might be a young person earning my keep in a dystopian future by caring for infants left behind when their parents left to find habitable planets in other solar systems. Is it silly? Sure! But it’s fun!

On a slightly more serious and personal note, baby dolls allow me to explore the possibility of a world free from the prejudices and difficulties that plague childrearing in this one. I came out as bisexual only after I was married to a man, and even though I love my partner, I mourn for the relationships and community I missed out on when homophobia and biphobia kept me in the closet for so long. In another universe, I could be raising this hypothetical baby with my wife, or with multiple partners of various genders. I can also imagine a world in which capitalism doesn’t force people to choose between being a full-time parent and being a successful astronaut-novelist-spy. And I can imagine a world in which women don’t bear an unfair share of the childrearing burden. I believe that imagining a better world is a step towards creating one; that’s one of the reasons representation in fiction is so important. Baby doll storytelling is one way I imagine that better world.

I certainly don’t see my interest in baby dolls replacing my interest in other dolls, although I’m suspicious that some people are going to assume that even after I’ve explicitly stated that it’s not the case. I also don’t see a real baby, if I happen to have one, replacing my interest in baby dolls or any other dolls. That’s not what this is about for me. Instead, it’s about different kinds of creative and imaginative experiences. Baby dolls increase the number of those experiences I get to have.