One
had a glossy cap of painted hair on an unusually large head, while
another after undergoing too many bath times looked like a blonde
scarecrow, her hair sparse and sticking out at all angles, for if
they weren't that ugly to begin with I made them so. One considered
more appealing in a pink romper suit crawled and gave high-pitched
wails; I came to detest everything about her as did the dog and the
rest of the household. She was punished: her voice silenced and sent
to the naughty corner. Permanently. And another, whom I called
Andrea, was always naughty, except I liked her for it. She was my
'Amelia-Jane' of the Enid Blyton story with a red mop of hair and
huge blue eyes.
But
as much as I liked my dolls, something about them offended me. I
wasn't exactly a caring 'mother'. They brought out a cruel streak as
(again like Claudia) I took their heads, arms and legs off 'to see of
what it was made'. Even Barbies were beheaded. These dismemberments,
however, usually ended in disappointment because there was nothing
more to be found, nothing more to be seen. Their bodies were still
hard and unyielding. Their eyes, as Claudia says, were still moronic.
It made me want to hurt them. They had flesh-coloured skin yet there
was no softness in them. None to be found anywhere, just occasionally
a mechanism that made them howl, sometimes cry fake tears or wet
themselves.
A
mother that was nice; a mother that was horrid. A mother that tried
to play nice as she fought the urge to do horrid things; all the
'boy' things that little girls are not supposed to do, like pinch and
bite. I strapped them in buggies, I wheeled them in prams; I swaddled
and jogged them; I held them by the hand and dragged them on the
ground. I let them fall over and scream; I let them lie neglected and
made no attempts to pick them up or offer comfort. I changed them, I
fed them, from a bottle, from a spoon. One fed as if she was a drunk
glug glug glug. I went through these play motions but still failed to
understand why I should want to play 'mother'. And why my friends
seemed perfectly content with their baby dolls, who were, according
to them, perfectly behaved.
They
weren't real!
And
I never could pretend they were, not to the satisfaction of my
imagination anyway. I much preferred the toy appliances I was given;
I still like the grown-up versions now, though it doesn't say a lot
for feminism, other than the fact that these labour saving devices
went some way towards saving women. Time spent beating rugs and
scrubbing floors and hand-washing and mangling clothes was returned
to spend elsewhere; it just took a while, in the beginning, to find
what that time should be spent on. What was
a woman's role? Who was she
outside of the home?
As
a girl-child I chose pretend domesticity over pretend motherhood, and
that, too, has been my choice in adult life. It's natural, I think,
to want the home to be clean and habitable and the doing and the
regularity with which these tasks have to be done I personally find
soothing. They de-clutter a busy head. When you're a mother, the
choice can't be made between one or the other, you have to do both:
you can't escape either entirely, even with help.
But
sometimes I wonder how much my experience of playing with dolls has
played into the choices I've made? Did I always realised I lacked
that something? Can you lack maternal instinct at so young an age?
I
held proper conversations with soft animals and knitted people. I saw
the human in furry unreal creatures. I saw 'life' in a knitted man or
woman. Bears I could cosset and cuddle and love and make real.
Why
the urge, the rush to give babies to girls?
Picture credit: The Popoffs Doll, Teddy Bear and Toy Elephant, Zinaida Serebriakova, 1947 (source: WikiArt).
Written early 2020.
