Did you play with dolls as a child?

I played with dolls my entire childhood...and well into my teen years...and then into young adulthood...

I still have my first expensive doll, Eileen, a Goetz doll my mother ordered for me from Germany. She has an extensive wardrobe of things made my mother and I over the years. I was still making clothes for her and buying new shoes and glasses when I was doing my undergrad years. I had TONS of Barbies, and had immensely complex stories for each of them. I love Barbie clothes. Once I wrote to Matel asking why Barbies had transformed from teen super models with fancy clothes in the 60s to bimbos that could only wear hot pink. Their response was very polite, but I think they probably ignored a letter from an 11 year old.

I got interested in bjds several years ago when an artist I love, Aurore Blackcat, posted a link to her blog about her bjds. I immediately needed several. I never seemed to have the money...and since starting grad school, I've had even less. But I will own dolls! My prospective career will finance my obsession.

 

Never played with dolls as a child. I collected a few here and there, but they were just part of my hoard of things I hoard. >_> The first barbie I ever got was from my uncle's then girlfriend (now my aunt), but I didn't care much for it because it didn't have long hair. Come to think of it, it may be the only barbie I got. /ponders But no, I didn't play with dolls, I just collected stuff.

My mother has a theory that because I was deprived of dolls when I was a kid, I'm making up for it now. I rather think that it's a continuation of my tendency to want to collect things, limited things, especially, and stuff to make up a set.

I have no self-consciousness relating to dolls whatsoever.

 

I hated baby dolls as a kid, because well... I didn't want to play mom, and I still don't want kids so I never liked the baby dolls.

But Barbies was a different story. I had about 10 of them and I played a lot with them.
Mostly I used to play some kind of my own version of Tomb Raider or Xena -the warrior princess (yeah, my childhood heroines xD).
Other days my dolls were singers and in a rock band.

My interest for BJDs is very similar to my Barbies, except that my BJD has one personality and my barbies had multiple. One day they were something and the next day they were something else.
My BJD is who she is, and nothing else.

 

Yep. I was an extremely tomboyish child, but I loved my Barbies. I still have them. I collected dolls even when I was a child, but took a hiatus for several years when I was a teen. It was Japanese fashion dolls that got me back into collecting, and from there it was a fairly short slide to BJDs.

 

I played with dolls as a child, babies, barbies, all of them. And then I grew up and had a daughter who loved dolls, so the doll bug bit me again. She is grown up now and still playing, it is her who introduced me to the bjd.

 

i played with every doll my relatives gave me thus i own alot of barbies!the funny thing is that i still play with dolls only this time they are bjed!its cool cuz u get to be different characters and dress them the way u like plus these dolls are so much better then the barbies......

 

I think I had some as a child but I never really like them. My childhood was difficult. Moving was really bad enough as it is, but moving to a foreign country that doesn't even speak the same language as you is a bit more tough.
It's probably why I'm playing with them now! To make up with "lost" time to say

 

[paragraph]Barbies and My Little Ponies are the reason I can french braid half as well as I can... (when I had longer hair, I could actually do my own as long as I had time) but to be honest, I ... played with them, but they teamed up as a crime fighting squad against my Lego Pirates, so, yeah. I admit I also had a bag of foreign coins I played with as well. Like recording interviews of the talking heads. Basically nothing I had was off-limits when I was bored. It wasn't so much that I played with dolls, it was that I played with anything.[/paragraph][paragraph]I had a doll that wasn't a Barbie, her name was Rosemary and I have no idea what company or anything, but she's actually probably closer in height to an SD, but she's got a child-like body (like a Lusion). Honestly I didn't play with her as much. I'd change her clothing, and I'd probably have done stuff with her hair if it wasn't crimpy which scared me off from ruining it, but actual PLAY, not so much. I'd make sure she was sitting pretty though.[/paragraph][paragraph]The porcelain dolls that I got for Christmas a couple times (from the distant grandparents usually) freaked me out a bit. Once again, they have the childlike look to them, and even looking at BJDs now I'm finding that with the exception of the tiny Pukis and their very "fae" and slightly unnatural looks, I'm definitely not a fan of child-like aesthetics, to the point where I'm nearly exclusively looking at SDs and very, VERY few MSDs. I have another friend who is also freaked out by dolls in general, but when I showed her a couple of the dolls I had in mind, she was like, "Okay, that I can deal with, that's pretty." .. and she LIKES KIDS. (I don't.)[/paragraph]

 

I didn't. I was more of a dump truck, dinosaurs, and toy sharks kind of kid. I didn't find dolls interesting until I was in my late teens and didn't get one until I was twenty.

 

I had dolls, but they were mainly for sewing for, and customising with tatoos or different makeup. I loved bratz dolls for the latter because their heads were big enough to paint on easily. And my sister got me to change the colour of her barbies eyes like a million times XD
But in general I prefered dinosaurs, trucks, race cars (especially the snap together electric track ones) and playing 'imaginary games'. I didn't really start getting into dolls (for the sake of having/playing with, not just as a useful sewing dummy) until I was 19-20, when I got my first BJD.

 

Did you play with dolls as a child?
I was a tomboy, but I did have a rather vast collection of Barbie dolls and the like.. But the thing was, I only liked to play with the ones that had hinge joints.

Why or why not?
Because, much like now, I had a VERY vast imagination and the dolls helped me to amplify that further.

If yes, did your childhood love of dolls get you into BJDs or was it something else?
Most definitely. I've always liked the idea of dolls and the first time I had seen a BJD I was completely captivated, the first time playing with one, I automatically fell in love

Great thread, btw. I was just thinking about this not too long ago

 

I grew up on baby dolls and Barbies. I actually have a handful of expensive, life like, baby dolls from my childhood. I also took great interest in my grandmother's porcelain dolls that she kept in the study, so I have always had a fascination with dolls. I often loved creating worlds and life in my head and dolls helped me do so... I also loved playing with Barbie hair haha. I think it did help me get in to the ABJD hobby because I enjoyed the beauty of dolls.

 

As a kid, I was generally uninterested in Barbies and other similar dolls because I couldn't really customise them. I didn't like the clothes that were available for them, and I wasn't allowed to cut their hair-- I got yelled at pretty bad once when I chopped a Barbie's hair from waist length to shoulder length, and I never tried it again. I hated their faces in general as well because they just looked a little creepy to me, but there were some paint jobs that I really didn't mind, the one I remember most vividly was a Mulan doll (I don't remember if it was a Barbie or another make).

Exception to that was this one gymnastic Teresa (I think her name was) with jointed elbows and knees. I loved her, but my younger sister accidentally broke her right arm off from the elbow down and I went back to being apathetic towards them. I definitely preferred stuffed animals. :P

 

Did you play with dolls as a child? Why or why not?
Nope. I had a shocking lack of toys in general for a little girl, actually - the toys my parents bought for me were generally unisex, like jigsaws, Lego or science sets. I think I owned one Barbie when I was three; I'm not sure what happened to her. I never formed attachments to stuffed animals either. By the time I was six or seven I was bringing stacks of novels home to read, and those pretty much replaced all need for toys.

If no, how does your lack of childhood dolliness affect your BJD hobby (does it make you feel self-conscious, etc.)?
I started collecting BJDs because they combined a lot of my adult hobbies - painting, customization, sewing, photography. I find them beautiful. They are collector's items and art dolls to me; I'm sentimental towards them, but not because they're toys. I do feel self conscious carrying them in public, because yeah, grown woman with an armful of resin doll, but not because I'm afraid of being perceived as childish. It just seems like a pretty odd thing to do. I get embarrassed easily.

 

Yes, I played with dolls. Dolls were alive to me as a child. I was very tender with them. Moving joints became available but I didn't see much need for the feature. That was what an imagination was for. There was nothing my dolls could't do in their world and I lived mostly in their world. I rarely was around any other children, so my dolls were my friends and family. At a very young age I felt the perception of myself as my doll. I didn't get a real Barbie and the cheap plastic doll that was a little too big, with a pony tail that split to show her bald head (very thin hair covering) equaled me. I felt like I was less than other girls with real Barbies, because of my doll. But there were a lot of reasons that I felt like that, so my self esteem was already set in that direction.

I liked dolls and "tomboy" things too. I begged for and eventually got a BB gun, for example. I was an only child and that probably made it easier for me to "score" the cool toys that were typically given to boys. I guess the feeling that I was different took hold because when I had the chance to buy a real Barbie doll, I chose Midge instead. No one I played with had a Midge. I loved creating houses and sets for my dolls best. I saw that as the part that could be customized, more than clothes.

As an adult I thought antique dolls were cool, and creepy. I had an antique store but I avoided dolls for a lot of reasons. The doll collecting hobby was something I never expected to join. I had a "whatever" with a slightly raised eyebrow kind of attitude toward people who collected dolls. It was after I got active in deviantArt that I began to be fascinated by bjd photography.

I'm a portrait artist with a love for mixed media and assemblage art. Customizing dolls and creating art with them was a natural step for me. They combine everything I've been interested in trying, including textile art and design. My love for the bjd has led to an interest in all kinds of doll collecting. I think the only kind that I haven't yet picked up on are the ones that look like real infants.

But I will never say never about any kind of doll now...

 

I played with dolls of all sorts from baby dolls to Barbies. I loved dresses them up and what not. My grandmother even made my sister and I clothes for our dolls, so no one else had the same clothes. Barbie was a huge part of my childhood. I guess it, in a sense, is a stepping stone for some collectors. I bought limited edition Barbies as an adult before I ever bought my first BJD.

 

As a child I played with Barbies and such but what I had really wanted was a customized barbie that looked like me (there used to be a whole section just dedicated to that!). I'd spend hours recreating my doll on the website and wishing to get one. I also desperately wanted an American Doll, but (like the custom barbie) my mom couldn't afford it.
So now that I'm grown up (well,mostly haha) I get to make the customized dolls I always wanted as a child So I think that helped me get really into the bjd community!

 

When I was younger and my older sister still played with her dolls. I remember having a lot of fun playing with her and her barbies. Once she grew older and stopped playing with dolls I just didn't find them to be very fun anymore and also stopped. Although once my sister stopped playing with them I started to get them for presents all the time. Trying to be thankful for my gifts I always tried playing with them when I first got them, but it never really sticked for me.

The only barbie I remember playing with after that was this one my dad got me that was a scuba barbie and she came with a dolphin and whale toy. I have always had a fascination with marine life though so without the dolphin and whale I probably would have never touched a barbie again.

 

I absolutely did. I would play with anything and everything that looked like a miniature person. I even played with my mom's perfume and soap bottles that were in the shape of women in dresses. I loved barbies, action figures, and even little lego people. I especially loved anything with articulated joints (when they released the Barbie gymnast stuff with the jointed knees and elbows I spent hours just posing them)

 

Growing up I had the biggest doll collection of any of my friends. I had over 30 barbies, about 6 porcelain dolls, and I also made dolls of my own (I was a very creative child. Arts and crafts were how I spent every minute of my free time--much like today XD) I have a few Pink Label barbies that I keep in their boxes (but I admit they are not mint. I have DEFINITELY played with them) and some barbies/other fashion dolls that I have modded (One that I modded into a BJD She doesn't have hands though........ still unsure how to attach them.)
More than dolls though, as a kid I collected stuffed bears. My room was literally filled with them. When I grew out of them I donated all of the nicer looking ones (aside from a few favourites I still have) to children in need.
I still have my entire barbie collection in storage. I'm saving them for my kids.
My porcelain dolls all found different homes except one--a limited edition Christmas Belle (Beauty and the Beast) that stays with my mother. Although BJD's don't creep me out, other dolls do. Chucky scarred me for life. *glances around warily*