BJD's now because I wasn't allowed dolls as a kid?

I have owned a lot of Barbies, and have played with them since I was 10 years old.... (then I decided that rpgs on my playstation are much cooler xD)

 

I was kind of the opposite case... My mother encouraged me to play with dolls, and I really loved boy-ish toys. I've always found dolls beautiful, and collected them. Barbie, Chabel, Nancy and others when I was a child, later porcelain dolls, and now BJD.

I don't think liking dolls is related to what we were allowed or not while being children, it's more of a matter of liberty. You are free to do as you please now, so you give free reing to your wishes I do admit, though, that those things that were forbidden as children always look more appealing when we can get them.

I'm really glad that you finally got to collect dolls as you wanted, and I hope your collection grows with weed-like speed! *winks*

 

My mother hated dolls and made me feel that I was a major disappointment if I wanted them. When I begged for a doll for Christmas, she got the ugliest, clunkiest one available. Getting clothes for her was a major struggle. I pretty much gave up on wanting dolls. Now I can buy dolls and spoil them with lots of clothes. I'm sure I enjoy them more now because I wasn't able to as a child.

 

My sister and I both had lots of shared Barbies. I used to color on their faces for new makeup, make stories and clothes for them... Basically what I do now. I guess that's why I like BJDs.

 

I had many vict....dolls when I was a kid. I thought I was a hairstylist....XD Must've had about 10 or 15 of the darn things (barbies to porcelain and everything in between) . We would do everything together, play, eat, dress, bathe. It's probably where my current love for dolls come from. =) My parents and grandparents supported me, however it was my peers that swayed me to stop playing with them....but now that I'm in college I'm being more honest with myself! I've decided that I'm old enough to just not give a crud what other people think and do what I love. ^.^

 

I was never much for dolls as a child. I had porcelain dolls and some unfortunate barbies that were given to me as hand-me-downs and such, but it was always cooler to go hunting for snakes, lizards and frogs. To be honest, my dolls as a child freaked me out. I couldn't sleep around the porcelain ones, especially. My interest in dolls later on was a total surprise, but I've changed so drastically over the years that just about everything is a surprise anymore.

 

I always had a ton of dolls as a kid. I had alot of barbies, had a baby doll that cried and stuff, cabbage patch kids, etc etc. When I was in high school I started collecting My Scene barbies because I liked the style and concept and then for awhile had Winx Club dolls too. From there it was Pullips after High School/Early University and then finally I went for BJDs after like 9 years of wanting one. I've always collected things I liked, worn things I've liked, etc even if they've been quirky. I've had my family behind me the whole way though, even if they think I'm crazy they're cool with me doing my own thing and wouldn't discourage me of something - offer advice but nothing more.

 

My mom probably would have preferred me playing with dolls as a kid instead of the trucks and building blocks I was so fond of (oh, and plastic penguins xD I loved making up stories involving plastic penguins), but I had one barbie and that was it. I couldn't stand the way she felt, like all slick and rubbery-plasticky. I also never liked the feel of porcelain much either, but resin is a different story altogether. Obviously, now that I WANT to play with dolls, my mom discourages it, just 'cause said dolls are at least a couple hundred dollars or so...

 

I think you bring up an interesting topic. I was always given dolls as a child, but I never cared for them much. I actually preferred the "boys toys": hot wheels, tonka trucks, tool sets. I preferred drawing even to toys. The only dolls I ever cherished were some small, bisque dolls that my best friends mother made for us (they looked like us). As an adult, I've collected all kinds of toys and action figures, but only the past year or so became interested in dolls, particularly when I discovered BJDs! I often wondered myself if it was my lack of interest in dolls as a child that has drawn me to them now.

 

That reminds me of me as a kid! XD I was like a tomboy/ girly girl crossbreed. I would climb trees, bring home reptiles, play with bugs and do all other sorts of crazy things! Then on the other side I would dress in girly clothes, play with my dolls and other such cutesy things. I never could make up my mind cus both aspects were fun. X)

 

I...was a demon to my dolls as a kid. Unless if you count my raggedy ann doll, who i kept on display because she was too pretty to be touched. My aunts and mother always tried to give me cute things and dolls and they'd always end up shoved in the back corner of my room, with me playing Zelda games with my brother instead. I remember we use to take the baries on the 4th of july and fill them with gunpowder...
It was a big barbie graveyard.;;

How I got to loving BJDs I don't really know, but they caught my eye. Maybe its because they can actually do things unlike barbie?

 

Definitely not me. I was a spoiled brat, if I wanted a Barbie I got a Barbie. I have mountains of girls and like 2 boys. However, I was never limited to dolls just because I was a girl. I often played with cars and blocks and various other things that weren't stereotypically girly toys. Sometimes they'd even end up being played with together. So I suppose that's probably where my love for BJDs came from.

 

I hated dolls as a kid.

When I was young, dolls were supposed to be to play "house" or "mommy", and neither of those things was appealing to me, who wanted to be a Scientist, not a Housewife. I wonder if I knew the sexism inherent in it...? I don't know. (BTW, my parents never tried to push any future on me, neither scientist nor housewife.)

BUT...I have always loved (a) dress up and (b) collecting things. the few dolls I had I enjoyed picking out elaborate outfits for...and then not playing with them. And I have many, many collections of random things. My favorite doll was one which you could win a "twin" to go with it, and I'd won...a perfect matching set! How "collectable"!

Which is why BJDs are so ideal for me, since a good part of the hobby is the collection aspect and the dressup aspect.

 

I always wanted one of those "My Size Barbies" when I was really little, but we couldn't afford it back then. When I got a bit older, I wanted an American Girl doll, but they were expensive and my parents knew I would play with it for awhile and then lose interest. So I didn't get one of those either. Now, I collect BJDs. I like to think it has something to do with not getting a big barbie or an American Girl doll. And you know what, I'm happy that I didn't get those things if it has led me to become a BJD collector.

 

I had dolls as a child, but this topic reminded me of something that I think did really influence my love of collectible and/or valuable dolls.

My grandmother brought home this lovely doll for me -- a valuable one, but I have no idea what kind it actually was -- from Italy when I was very young, perhaps 6 or 7. I remember hating the dress on it, and the hat, which was worse, and redressing it in what was actually a rather lovely outfit from a 'Big Barbie' (watch as I totally out myself as olllllld there... ) instead. Cue my mother having a hissyfit of epic proportions. It simply made no sense to me to have a doll I couldn't play with, and that this one was mine but I wasn't permitted to touch it was an utterly alien notion to me. She went to live in the glass case with my mother's porcelain dolls after that incident, and is actually still there to this day, thirty-odd years later. (I found this all strangely hypocritical since my mother changed the clothes on her porcelain dolls, and even dressed one up in a fancy holiday dress of mine -- which it is still wearing also -- at one point. *twitch*)

Having a 'fancy doll' that I can handle, that was designed to be handled, was and is something special, and definitely falls under the 'something that had been denied me as a child' category, even if it is in a different way.

 

I was not really into dolls when I was a kid, anything that looked more human freaked me out (Puppets *shivers*), but I had some Barbies and they went through hell.
Even later with one of my friend we still played dress-up with her little Barbies collection.
But except the dressing part I did not really like them and I went into plushies when I had the money =3

Then I found this.... and well... now I like dolls xD
But I still do not like Barbie-like dolls..... anything that looks like them I do not like.
This kind of doll is just so much more then what I had in the past, always the same face, hair, even the clothing always looked the same :/

 

It wasn't that I wasn't allowed dolls as a child rather we were very poor and dolls simply were not in the budget. I did have one baby doll but didn't have the Barbies or growing hair Crissy dolls, etc. that the other girls at school had. My motto now is "It's never too late to have a happy childhood!" and in the last year have amassed a collection of more than 30 dolls (inc. 4 bjd).

 

I was allowed to play with dolls as a child and did by my own choice until about 13. Then I stopped playing with dolls and started playing MMO-RPGs until about 16-17, when I found BJDs and got into them. So there was only ever really a 3 year point in my life I didn't play with dolls. When I was younger, I almost always cut the hair off my Barbies and called them "Sam" - All of them were "Sam", even if I had twenty.

At that time my parents figured there was something 'wrong' with me and made sure to tell me so, but they never discouraged it or said I couldn't have dolls. So in a way, I kind of had some upsetting things related to dolls happen with me when I was younger, but that never stopped me from liking dolls then or now.

I'm one of those people who thinks what happened in the past doesn't matter, but how you enjoy the present does.

 

I had some dolls around the house when I was a kid, but I was never that interested in them. I've always been more interested in books.

Nowadays I don't "play" with bjds, I just customise them or at most pose them around. I don't really consider bjds an extension of dolls for children, to me they're more like articulated, poseable anime figures that you can customise.