Mothering instinct?

Heh.
Not even a little bit.

I'm 40, married, and childless by choice... If I had ever wanted kids, I'd have had kids, not inanimate resin place-holders. But the truth is, I never did. I have about as much maternal instinct as a wet paper bag, and what little interest I've had in playing parent was more than fulfilled by looking after my younger brother when he was a baby, and playing with my nephew, god-daughter and friends' kids now.

That "Oh, you're just getting dolls as child-substitutes"-thing bugs the hell out of me, honestly. I've had to correct a few too many people who made that assumption about my own collection, and I don't like seeing it re-enforced from within the hobby itself... It's annoying enough getting that silliness from "civilians".

So, no. Not all of us buy dolls because we want babies.
Don't even start with that.

And while we're at it, don't assume that we all refer to our dolls as children, or appreciate others calling them "your kids". That's not a universally-loved idea, either.

 

Not me. I'm 22, quite fertile, and married to a guy who would love me to pop out a young'un, so if I wanted babies, I could definitely have babies. I have to do enough motherly caring for the husband as it is. >< I do think that's a HUGE misconception about dolls and the people who have them... Of course some people buy dolls to be their little resin babies, but the majority of people have them for entirely different reason. Same way we don't assume every single female with a cat has the cat to be her child, we can't assume every single (or married!) female has dolls to replace kids. Some people definitely do, but most of us definitely don't.

I do love my dolls so much...but I love my husband much more.

 

I think we may have had this discussion before and I can tell you in my case it has NOTHING to do with that. I consider the dolls to be like other things I collect or take an interest in, which include stuffed bears, advertising bendies, miniature buildings, art jewelry, sculptures, paintings, prints and other art. All of these categories have some items that are pretty cheap and others that cost a comparable amount to the dolls. None of these items have anything to do with a "mother instinct" and I do not consider any item that isn't a living, breathing being to be something to be "mothered" in any event. I frankly find the comparison of a doll with a flesh and blood human or even flesh and blood animal to be offputting and very off base.

If I have any motherly instincts (I'm not sure as my spouse and I have not had kids and my bio clock is probably expired or close to it - I don't care), I express them on flesh and blood targets such as hugging or fussing over my close friends and my cats.

 

It's probably brought on by how some collectors act, especially the motherly or grandmotherly types who buy the cutie baby or child dolls. But yeah, the assumption that a doll is always a substitute "baby" for an adult is pretty silly.

 

i have ZERO mothering instincts. Nobody asks me to babysit even unless the only other choice is leaving their kid w/ a homeless person or something. i'm 35 years old and surely i would have felt some sort of biological compulsion by now if there was any.

so I don't know about anybody else, but for me it's clearly a "no". In fact i think i like dolls because they aren't anything like real kids (don't eat, drool, poop, don't ask for attention, don't need to be watched or nurtured ... just sit there and wait until i have time time for them and feel like playing w/ them. And they don't talk back or get their outfits dirty. PERFECT)

Edit: ok i just re-read that and it sounds so bad i like kids fine, i just don't want them for me. And dolls are stress-free and fun for me and kids are very rewarding but NOT stress-free. plus i have very little free time as it is. I have 38 dolls, i don't want 38 kids!

 

Okay, so what I'm discovering from this thread is that I'm the only crazy one here!

 

No, it doesn't sound bad at all. It sounds JUST LIKE ME Even when I was a little girl, I hadn't the slightest interest in babies or babysitting so I figure I was born that way. Society needs to get past the idea that just because a lot of women like and want children, it's every female's dream and goal to pop a kid. I also like the way dolls and bears don't need constant attention and are happy to sit there all dang month if need be until I finally make it home from work or an out of town trip.

And rest assured that if I had a number of kids matching my number of dolls, I would be living in a (very large) shoe.

 

no you are not! we are all different is all

 

Thirded in full!

...I can't even imagine the college fund I'd have to start if I had to send them all through schooling. Not even the biggest of lottery wins would cover that particular bill.

 

And at least I don't have nursery full of reborns that I push around the neighborhood in a pram, right?

 

I guess i understand but im not quite there yet. I have a few soom monthlies and they do spark that mother-baby feel to me, though I dont swaddle them and tote them around, intead Ive contented myself giving them resin parents and making little families. I dont think it that I necessarily want children, but the fact that you worry about them and tend to their needs of clothing, aesthetics and cleanings? but im 19 and definately feel the need to care for my baby dollies alot more than my adults. I even noticed this spike when my sister had a baby and I had to help with feeding/babysitting/etc and I started wanting a pukifee! lol I still want it though.. hmm..

 

Even though I feel a bit too young to answer, (18) I have to say that dolls are no way my children. I will only be mother to human babies. I seem to be one of the few who actually dreams of having kids. Motherly instinct plenty, just not for inanimate objects.

@*Jane*: I don't think you're weird at all. =o And the way you express it, I think it's rather cute. >w<

 

well if you WERE i wouldn't judge you for that either. Dolls are for having fun with and enjoying ... no matter what that means to you.

 

I'm very much a childfree person, and I am almost 30. I think the wet paper bag actually has more mothering instincts than I do. I'm simply not that giving a person to want to devote myself to a child. They have too many needs, and I am not interested in fulfilling them as the payoff to me is not worth the trouble.

Dolls have no needs and are always beautiful and perfect. I certainly don't think of them as my children, and it would be really off if I did considering I write homoerotica about them.

 

That's definitely one of the reasons I could never consider dolls as my substitute children. I came to bjd through anime/manga and BL (yaoi) fandom. Although I don't think I'll actively make up backstories/romantic entanglements for my bjds, I still associate bjds with BL and I spend too much time on bjd fansites (and official sites, for that matter) with homoerotic overtones for me to ever disassociate them from BL.

I have no mothering instinct with bjds - I have only the fangirling instinct.

A lot of people (myself included) strive to make their dolls (male and female) look attractive/sexy/cool - that's not really an appropriate motherly intention, and I'd say it's in direct conflict with the mothering instinct.

It's actually squicky for me when I see romantic/sexy photoshoots of bjds and then the owner still refers to them as "my son" or "my daughter". I know people don't necessarily put strong meaning in those terms, but I'm a little squicked regardless.

That said, I don't think there's a right/wrong about this, and I don't think using bjds to fulfill your mothering instinct is any better/worse than using bjds to fulfill your twisted fangirl fantasies. To each their own.

 

Uh. Um. Trust yourself and buy the dolls. It'll give you something fun to be occupied with around age 35-36, when the same clock not only ticks, but also gets its very own GONG to sound in your ear every five minutes. Or bullhorn. ("Hey! Lady! Reproduce, already!")

Biological clocks can end up costing a WHOLE lot more (points to Lizardbreath and the one who is still too young to join DoA). I would not change having the progeny for anything, but it certainly wasn't my original intention to be having a child at 41...

In all seriousness. Don't worry about why you want to play with dolls! We worry about this far, far too much. Just enjoy them for whatever reason you have, and be delighted that they exist and we can get them so easily!


Oh and Jane: you're not crazy. Not in any way. Hobbyists get intense about their hobbies, fairly often.

 

It's interesting how many people answering this thread have no desire to have children of their own. I wonder if that's a common trend in doll owners?

I think that the common "civilian" opinion of doll collectors using dolls as child substitutes is that they simply don't "get" why we love them so much... if they did, they'd be collectors themselves. So they ascribe the affection we lavish on them to something they can understand. If you couple that with what seems to be (at least in this thread) the prevailing trend that most doll collectors don't have any real children it's not such a hard assumption to make.

I'm sure there's some survival instinct ingrained in all of us to want to take care of something cute or small; that's why everyone loves a small cute baby/animal/stuffed animal I guess. And something as life-like as BJDs might occasionally trigger that instinct more-so than something that doesn't look like a living thing.

And sure I talk to my dolls at the fabric store and tell them how nice this print is or wouldn't they like an outfit of that, but I also have long talks with the CD player at work who is very fussy, cuss out my computer from time to time, and sweet-talk my old car over a step hill.

 

I don't know as I'd go so far as to call it a "common trend" as there are a lot of doll owners with kids or planning to have kids. I think it's more likely that a thread in Debate entitled "Mothering Instinct?" will bring everybody right out of the woodwork who reacts strongly to the concept of "doll = child substitute" and that's highly likely to include people who aren't into the idea of having kids at all. So it's more like a trend in who posts an answer to the thread.

 

Not at all, in my case, anyway. I'm getting the mother/child gap filled with my human kids. I have been a dollcollector for years now. and whilst I adore my dolls, they are never mistaken for/replacing "real kids".

 

I have a maternal instinct and I am a very mothering person--- to actual children, not to dolls. I love kids! I babysit my friend's children all the time, and I love to cuddle and play. But with the dolls, it's all very different. They're my fashion-plates, so to speak, the ones I pose and comb and see how uniquely I can photograph them. I love 'em, but it's a very different love than I have for kiddos.