Hey all, Angela here! We're going to start this day off with our first tangent post! The question at hand for today...Is there an age limit on doll play/collecting?
Lately, I've seen a lot of questions floating around to the effect of 'am I too old for dolls?' 'should I stop playing with dolls?' 'will I be made fun of for playing with dolls?' 'Is it weird for __ age to play with dolls?'
The answer to all of these questions is so, so simple. There is no age limit on dolls and toys. If you enjoy having dolls around and styling/creating stories with your dolls, you do you! Little do you know, the girl who spends all day uploading her life to Instagram actually has a secondary Instagram full of doll photos. The kid who spends her time uploading videos to her YouTube channel for her friends? She's got a hidden YouTube account with a false name just for her doll collection videos and dolly DIYs.
And that one kid who teases you for the Monster High doll you brought to the park/school/etc last week? He's got a whole collection of Marvel action figures, he's just afraid you'll tease him if he brings them out of the house because his Dad says toys are just for kids, not for someone his age. If he knew you'd accept it, he'd want Batman to rescue Frankie Stein from the Joker on the Jungle Gym -- Because wouldn't that make an epic story?!
There comes a point where, sure, the actual acting out of the imagination stories does tend to take more time than we have to spend as we grow up. But that doesn't have to stop you from creating a character and taking a set of photos or writing a story to go with the doll in question. Doesn't stop you from having a dozen Barbies or a whole room dedicated to dolls if that's what makes you happy. It just means you've got to balance your dolls with the other things you need to do.
The only difference between this and when I was ten, eleven, twelve...kids still owned and played with their toys, we played house and school and dolls even as we approached teenage years, only breaking off when life grew too busy for us to spend the time on our childhood fantasies. We were in no hurry to grow up.
We didn't have phones or unattended internet access until we were sixteen/seventeen and then we used email to exchange links to the coolest videos on YouTube (which at the time were nearly all music/recordings of movie clips, none of this craziness that is today's YouTube) when and only when we weren't tying up the dial up connection talking on a landline phone.
We would get together to actually play with our dolls and stuffed animals, making up stories in which our beds were the dolls' house and the corner between the book shelf and the wall was our horse stable, the shopkeeper took monopoly money and plastic gemstone beads as payment and our family was made up of various beanie babies and McDonalds toy Barbies. And nobody judged anybody else, you simply packed your dolls into your backpack and brought them to your best friend's house if she didn't have the ones you liked best to play with.
When you grew out of your dolls and toys, you didn't simply get rid of them to hide the traces, you picked out that friend a couple of years younger or who still played with hers regularly and you passed on those you didn't want to keep on a shelf or in a plastic tote, let someone else enjoy them without judgment.
The other thing I see all the time is adult collectors admitting to the internet that they do collect, but they keep it hidden from the world, because it 'wouldn't be appropriate' to collect toys at their ages, but they so want to share the little bit of joy and color their toys bring to their lives outside the every day drudgery of having to be an adult.
Tell me something, though. And do feel free to say so in the comments if you like - How many of you have dolls or toys in your collection that you used to have during your childhood or that you always wanted and now as an adult, you can finally afford it? I'm right there with you.
Here are my American Girls; a branch of my doll collection that started only in March of 2018, one year ago. I could tell you stories about playing with my cousin's and friend's American Girl dolls and how much I so wished for most of my childhood to have one of these dolls to call my own. There are at least eight dolls missing from this shot (Luciana, Saige, Molly, Samantha, Felicity, Rebecca, Ivy and Kanani are not pictured) for a collection total of eighteen full size dolls. A childhood dream come true in these girls.
And this 1990s beauty is a Hot Skatin' Barbie. She was my favorite Barbie when I was little, although not my original one. My original Hot Skatin' Barbie sadly lost her legs in a tragic gymnastics accident when I was six and I was never able to repair her at the time. I've since replaced her with an authentic vintage copy of the doll found at my local Salvation Army thrift store.
So...tell me in the comments...does your collection have a connection to your childhood? Either something you'd always wanted or something you once had? Have you replaced any childhood friends or found new toy friends you'd always wanted to bring home when you were a kid? Let me know, I'd love to hear your stories.
--Angela--
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