How does your family react to the hobby ? - Part 2

@Sheyda I love your mother! I am in my 70s and I bought a doll on QVC in the 80s for my daughter and was a professional artist most of my life. I also gave my daughter a doll 5 years ago which she rejected but that's when I started my hobby so I guess I should thank her!

 

Oh, that's such a letdown that your daughter rejected your gift. Maybe one of these days she'll come around. But I'm glad that you discovered the world of BJDs through it!

And yes, I'm very grateful to have the mom that I have!

 

I don't think she has the potential to come around but I realized that ever since I was a child, I loved dolls I saw and we couldn't afford and I assumed that giving my child dolls was a way I showed her love. But it was what I would have wanted, not what she wanted. So now I give dolls to ME instead of giving them to others. I'm very happy I figured that out.

 

My mother only supports me buy dolls with beautiful faceup, because she clearly knows that i'm too lazy to find the person to draw the faceup after i buy the new head.

 

I have a don't ask don't tell policy with my actual relatives. I'm not financially dependant on them or involved in their financial decisions though. I have a feeling one human would be rather negative towards it though. She has voiced opinions about my "concerning financial decisions" before.
My close friends/ etc will possibly hear too much about it as I go along.

 

I know there was a thread on families who are critical of bjd and wanted to hear people's stories of their family reacting to their ball jointed doll or stories involving bjds. Whether is be a horror story or a positive one

I haven't shared much about my bjd but my sister is really scared of dolls, I shared my Dollzone Cindy and surprisingly my family was really supportive, even my sister who is freaked out. I think what helped was that Cindy is a ram so it wasn't uncanny by any means. My other sister was even excited to see how it turned out. Even if the interest was feigned, I was really happy that they weren't actively being weird about it like some stories I hear.

 

My parents hate that I buy dolls, they say as an adult I should leave dolls behind. Yet they give me money (albeit complaining) for it, so I dont really mind their ramble. My sister say my dolls are weird, ugly, and so on, but she listen to me about all the details I want to make for them, so I think its just not her thing, but she cares. My brother is the more understandable, he used to collect legos, so he also heard a lot of "grow up, this is not a hobby but you being afraid of letting go"...

As for extended family, some of my mother family side knows about some of my dolls, and think they are pretty on the shelf, but not to spend time with (like, crafts, they wouldnt understand ventilating a wig for months for a doll). My father side family is so... "The perfect picture", my cousing of my age are already married, have a job, live with her own made family and so on, so I could never even show the dolls to them or talk about it.

 

I'm lucky. My mom got into Barbies at about the same time I got into BJDs. I didn't like dolls at all as a kid, and mom was just kinda nostalgic about er barbies but wasn't into collecting them or anything.When I showed her pics of them, she loved them. I've been slowly getting her used to the idea of bigger and jointed dolls too. Hopefully one day I can get her into BJDs I love. Dad and hubby both don't really "get it" but are both supportive. I also have an aunt I showed them t hoping she could help me learn to sew over duo since I cant go take classes right now. I haven't told nay other family, but only because I never see any of them. I'm rally glad I get the support do.

 

My sister and I share the hobby. My mom has also sewed or made beds for our dolls and my dad has made them furniture in the past. I know the cost kind of bothered Mom at first and she used to say don’t tell dad what that cost but they kind of got used to the idea that we really loved them.

 

I don’t think my Mother understands the appeal. She always gives me these looks when I go shopping for them, or mainly when I decided to take them out in public for photos XD However, her parental philosophy is ‘As long as it makes you happy’. So despite not understanding she’ll still support me in it anyway she can.
As for my grandparents, I think it was much more socially acceptable during their time for a young women to still like dolls. They are wholesomely supportive, buying me little things all the time

I was the same as a kid, I never really wanted dolls. I think thats what made my mother even more surprised when I got into them as a young adult XD
Your mother sounds like a lovely person!

 

Most of my family are fine about my dolls, they enjoy seeing things I make for them, help me at times with taking pictures, etc.

I have one niece, who, when she heard I had started my collection, she freaked out, told me dolls were creepy as hell and couldn't I find a better way to use my time. I just laughed and went on to collect a few more.

One Easter, she refused to come to a family gathering because my house was full of creepy dolls...I own 7 one quarter scale dolls and they are in my office where she'd never be, so she came. Welll, I forgot that I had one on display in my Dining Room, She is my tribute to Catherine Medici in a lovely silk gown I had bought the material for in Rome on a vacation.

My Sister in Law spotted her right away and told me not to move her and see what my Niece did. During the day my Niece kept walking in there and starring at my Catherine, not saying a word. At the end of the day, as she was getting ready to leave, she turned to me and said...I owe you an apology, That doll is not a doll, that's a piece of ART! I laughed and was a bit surprised!

She has since then met my other girls and asks about what I'm working on regularly! YAY!

 

My mom might roll her eyes every time I get a new doll/wig/eyes/clothes/accessories, but then she wants to see the doll and what it is wearing. She regularly helps me with taking photos of them outside and suggests places/poses. I think she worries a great deal about what to do with them if I somehow die before her but otherwise she just likes to help when she can and admire what I do. I don't think I will get her to collect her own but that's okay. My brothers don't care. The rest of my family doesn't know and I don't share. My cats...sometimes think some wigs are cat toys but lately they have been well behaved.

 

My family is pretty supportive. My sister is in the hobby. My parents didn't care for the cost of the hobby, but since I never ask them to buy me doll stuff, not really their business. They have helped make or shop for stuff for them, though! My husband is very supportive. He's a retro game collector, he understands collecting expensive things. Even my uncle asked about my dolls and talked to me for probably an hour about them!

 

My mom really likes them, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't know how expensive they are, haha. A few other members of my family were surprisingly sucked into the hobby with me the more I blabbed on about it---my sister could not have cared less about dolls before (aside from liking to watch faceup artists' videos on Instagram) but now she's obsessed.

 

I think all my family members are pretty supportive to my doll hobby. My parents used to go to outdoor photo shoot (of the dolls) with me, my mom would go look for fabric for the dolls with me, my brother likes to call them ugly (sibling thing lol) but he's an anime figure collector himself so we actually talk about our collector things together. My dad is super supportive of my doll buying behavior, especially when I told him "I don't know if I want that certain new doll, it's so expensive," and he just told me if I really like it I should just buy it (We all work so I guess it's cool LOL.) So overall I'm super lucky I will say lol

 

My eldest sister has hated dolls all her life she says, "They're like dead babies." (and i'm a lifelong doll collector) but even she was appreciative of my BJD's. The rest of the relatives, are fine with them, but not particularly interested. My husband has three BJD's and several off topic dolls of his own (a drop in the ocean compared to the house-full I have...{grin}).

But I have a couple of friends who are more phobic about dolls than my sister, and one of them refuses to visit because the dolls are all out on display all the time, so there's hardly a doll-free place in the house, which freaks her out. SHe's particularly freaked by BJDs (but I blame that on her having watched The Doll Master).

Teddy

 

I have more or less stopped buying dolls, and I now 3D print my own BJDs in wood PLA filament so I can be sure I get what I want and I don't need to bankrupt myself for it. When I bought dolls, my dad HATED the hobby. He thought it was ridiculous to spend hundreds of dollars on an impractical object, and he especially objected to the use of polyurethane resin as the yellowing factor is pretty much unavoidable, even with the high price tag.

I wasn't too bothered by his judgement because it was kind-of a mute issue anyway as I couldn't afford to buy more than a couple dolls on my salary, so I started making my own 3Dp dolls. His whole views on dolls changed then. My dad is an engineer, so his whole obsession with practicality makes sense, but luckily him being an engineer has also made him love creativity and learnable skills more than just using money exclusively for 'things that are useful' (as he says).

So now he'll help me make my own dolls since I'm improving my CAD skills by doing so, and those are skills that can actually be useful on job applications. He's super into it. He helps a lot with jointing, and with designing the doll to need the least amount of support material so it prints nicely, and he even helps me do the post-print dremmel work. It's quite the opposite of his original attitude towards dolls. He lets me use his printer and (pricey) filament for free as well, so it's very nice of him.

 

While my family says that I should stop doll collecting they also send me pictures and buy me dolls as gifts. (The non bjd kind, I’m primarily a porcelain doll collector)
I mentioned an off topic for DOA doll once and they found it by accident.
Kinda Lucky

 

I guess I'm a part of the "relatively lucky" club.

Neither my family nor my boyfriend really understands my hobby but they have nothing against it as long as it makes me happy. My mom always told me I'm a weird kid (with love, of course) but she let me do everything I wanted unless it caused any harm. So all my anime, cosplay activities, and now dolls are accepted.

And my best friend is the one who brought me to the hobby. She has much more dolls than me and helps me gather my own collection