lol wahhhh *suckles*

Get real you wingnuts.

Ya know what else is traumatizing to kids? Telling them that all their teeth are going to fall out to be replaced by adult teeth. My 5 year old is still worried about it.

This is life baby. We are fragile mammals. Get used to it.

I'm no conservative, but this seems highly innapropriate.

How long have little girls been playing with dolls, changing their diapers, and giving them bottles? Hundreds of years? And it's only now that they think it's going to "lead little girls to become traumatized".

Sheesh. If you want a little girl to become traumatized over child rearing, come out with a "Bebe Placenta" doll.

Just where exactly is the controversy? Many mothers choose to breast feed instead of bottle feeding their babies...Their young daughters would naturally want to emulate them...I for one think this doll rocks!

D-

Generally, by the time a girl is contemplating activities that lead to real babies, baby dolls have been out of the picture for quite some time.

I'm less worried about it scaring children, and more worried about it scaring me. That doll is creepy to the max.

The editors at Fox are idiots.

If you breastfeed your children it's natural that your kids "breastfeed" when they play with dolls. It's what they've seen, it's what they know. It has nothing to do with sex, but everything to do with modeling how to nurture a baby.

I'd mod it to add a couple of fangs and have it make the sucking sounds when held to somebody's neck.

Fox News is not true news, it is entertainment/bandwagoning for the easily led conservatives and bait for the easily manipulated liberals.

My advice? Ignore trolls.

@Segador: No, according to carrimclaren, you are a conservative. Get used to it.

I'm not sure what my stance is on this doll, but the bias seeping out of this blog post is rather disgusting. Just because some people would rather not have their children emulating certain behaviors at a young age, doesn't make them "wingnuts". You're free to disagree with them, but let's keep the name-calling and insults to a minimum, hmm?

@Shawn4168: Emulating what behaviors? Feeding their dolls?

I'm a conservative, and while I find this doll somewhat questionable, I would prefer to let it succeed or fail based on whether people buy it (the market).

What I do find VERY inappropriate is the insulting tone of the article written by Carrie McLaren. Why purposefully be rude to parts of your audience?

@torgonius: Yes! Bebe Vampiro. LOL.

@admiral_stabbin: I would not want that thing in my house unless it was locked in a heavy iron trunk.

I've seen the Talking Tina episode of the Twilight Zone and I know what happens. [Ed: Chucky doesn't work for me, too over the top]

I hate, hate, hate, hate dolls. Hate them with a fiery passion. This doll in particular makes dolls in general even creepier.

I never played with dolls as a kid so I don't really know how it was to play with dolls and changing diapers and such. I understand wanting to "be like mommy" and changing babies is one of those things - but I don't know if this particular doll is nearly the same. I mean, I don't think most parents would buy this anyway, but it just doesn't seem like the same thing as a baby changing a diaper on a doll.

@donopolis: Exactly. If a girl has younger siblings, there's a great chance she's seen mom breastfeeding them. Get over it.

As a conservative, am I now obliged to take a stance on this stupid toy?

Can I not have an opinion and still retain my ideology?

What's wrong with education dolls? I think we may have something here. I can think of quite a few dolls that can help educate children on the responsibilities of Motherhood. (WARNING for those without a sense of Humor and problems identifying sarcasm)

Some Ideas:

1) Baby in the Car doll (Doll turns red when the temperature goes above 100 degrees)

2) Shaken Baby Doll (Baby screams constantly and will fall silent when you shake it)

3) Indigestion Doll (use your imagination)

If anybody else has a suggestion please respond with comments. I am issuing patents immediately.

Forget traumatizing little girls. What about the trauma witnessing something like this will cause ME? Mothers breastfeeding their children - Fine. Little girls with daisies over their nipples breastfeeding a doll - Creepy.

@axiomatic: I wish the teeth that I had that were pulled out would grow back. Lucky kids.

@torgonius: Twilight baby! Baby Bella!

When did it become that breast feeding is "sex education"?

I personally don't care for the doll or the idea of the doll, and probable would not purchase one for my daughter - but if someone else's daughter would want one - so be it. I see nothing wrong with it

I think, that as dolls go, this is great. Why is it okay to give little girls dolls with bottles (as they've done for years and years) but emulating the natural, healthier way is somehow wrong?

@windycity: Yeah, there's no way I'd buy that for my nieces. Not that they'd want it -- they don't play Mommy, they play Evil Genius.

@donopolis: Yeah, I know plenty of little girls who stick their baby dolls up under their shirts, because they've seen their younger siblings being breastfed, or--gasp!--are under three and still nursing.

Here's a question: Does it get exponentially creepier and inappropriate if the doll is a boy? From the packaging I suppose the baby is a girl, but why make it only about girl babies? Is it objectionable if the doll is a male?

IMO, it gets much creepier for me, and I can't exactly explain why.

After her baby brother arrived on the scene and I was nursing him pretty much 24/7, our then 20 month old daughter took to lifting her shirts and slamming her soft-bodied baby doll onto her chest, chortling, "Baby eat nummy!" Seventeen years later, this sort of imitative play at a tender age does not seem to have warped her, caused her to become an unwed mother before her time, or any other dire outcome.

The nursing doll is whack in a hilarious way, but not "disgusting" or traumatizing IMO.

@windycity: @FTWGeek:

OMG - ha ha ha! These are all SO wrong ... and so funny.

@ElizabethD:

This was supposed to be a reply to FTWGeek, not windycity, BTW.

For more realism, I think we should require that the girls play with these dolls only in restrooms or else cover the doll with a big giant blanket.

Well, at least they used a halter top instead of 3" pasties with glowing LEDs at the end.

I had this idea years and years ago. A friend's daughter was walking around with her stuffed kitten toy, holding it to her chest and telling me she was the mother cat and she was feeding her kittens. (I had a foster kittens and their mom at my house at the time and this little girl was a frequent visitor.)

Her mother and I were discussing breastfeeding -- she is very pro-BF -- and I said that one way to "sell" the idea that breast is best would be to start early: stop selling those plastic baby nursers with baby dolls and start selling fake boobies that a little girl can wear, so she can breastfeed her dolly.

Mama thought it was hysterical and a terrible idea. Doesn't want her chy-uld exposed to !breasts! at such an early age! !Oh! !the! !humanity!

No sooner had she finished that thought than she unbuttoned her blouse and attached her infant to her chest to feed her.

*sigh*

@FTWGeek:

Shaken Baby Doll should come with a pair of handcuffs and a prosecutor, since it might send the wrong message if baby falls silent after being shaken. ;-)

@Segador: Can you explain why, exactly, this is "innapropriate"?

Contrast this to dolls with bottles, diapers, &c.

Yes because an innocent toy showing a perfectly natural result of the parenting process is Sooooo much more damaging than comercials or tv in general.

Hypocrite much FOX news?

Is today mid-90's day or something? We have admiral_stabbin saying "to the max" and ElizabethD saying "whack" and I'm just feeling like someone's going to show up with really thick high socks and doc martens and a white jean jacket.

Someone needs to send a dictionary to Fox News (again).

If the doll makes a girl "want" a baby, the pregnancy wouldn't be "unwanted" *by definition*.

@pecan 3.14159265: Because subconciously you relate breast "play" with a sexual act, and you're *not* a paedophile to enjoy a sexual act between younf children? :)

Just a guess.

I was breastfed on Fox News and I have no ill effects.

x..a.
.s.c.

@rpm773: Thats stupid talk. If you believe in any ideology at all, you have a stereotyped stock opinion about everything. even things not related to your ideology.

@knackeredmom: Yup. It's really important to try looking thru a child's eyes when raising them. A Primary Schooler isn't going to be having the same thoughts running thru their head as nutty, body-hating, overly sexualized adults.
Troublingly, the ones the most likely to freak out over this sort of thing are precisely the types to lack even the barest nib of empathy, so that option is unlikely...

@mamalicious: @GitEmSteveDave+$240InPudding: @GitEmSteveDave+$240InPudding: @Laura Northrup:

Heh, My girls certainly already do that. Not sure how this doll really changes anything. Now if you want creepy, that's when your 2 yr old wants to try Daddies nipples or even creepier when she offers me (the dad in question) a breast.

Agenda much? It appears the OP has an axe to grind with conservatives.

That's some nice objective reporting there Carrie. I'm surprised you couldn't find a way to blame GWB and praise B. Hussein Obama in that article. Next time, try harder.

@Segador: Why? Because breasts are only meant to be sex objects?

@mamalicious: Food = bad.
Anorexic toddler girls = hawt!

@pecan 3.14159265: Same here. I never understood baby dolls. They were boring. Why on earth would you want to pretend to be a mom when you're 4 years old?

I don't see how the argument could be made that a doll like this speeds up maternal urges any faster than any other baby doll that encourages you to feed, change diapers, etc. While I think the doll is a little terrifying myself, I don't think it's any worse than the baby dolls that actually poop themselves.

@pecan 3.14159265: LOL for some reason, I found the thought creepy too. But then, it may have been a result of your putting it that way. I always imagine babies to be kinda like genderless blobs of drool and flesh. With beautiful beautiful eyes and tiny but freakishly heavy heads.