Mothering instinct?

Not at all. I don't have any dolls who are child characters. They're adults and demons and teens. I don't look upon them as children or dress them like children or treat them like children.

The need that the dolls satisfy certainly isn't the mythological bio-clock; if I wanted to own & maintain kids, then I'd go have kids. So count me in the camp who bristles at the notion that I should be on a life-purpose-quest to pop out spawn, and has the mothering instinct of a wet paper bag, & all that. ^^

However, I don't mind offhandedly referring to them as "the kids"... many other child-free doll owners I know do this too, with no seriousness behind it. It's not a big deal to me to use the shorthand term. Friend of mine once got so frustrated trying to set the eyeballs in his Narin that he threw both fists up in the air and bellowed dramatically, "That's it! I give up! I have no son!" - but instead of this squicking us out, it made us laugh until we peed. I suppose it's all about context.

 

Agrreing with this wholeheartedly. 24, childfree early articulator.
I dispise the assumption that a doll=child replacement and being an early articulator of not wanting children+ buying a doll= I've changed my mind.

Part of the reason I like bjds is they are not children, as Jolarocknrolla put it further up the thread "(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)". I'm not a fan of alot of the smaller and more childlike sculps either, and I think reborns are some of the creepiest things ever created.

You want to call them your kids/daughter/son, carry them around in a stroler ect, fine, I won't stop you; Just don't assume we are all the same.

 

Yes. I wonder if the better word might be "nurturing instinct"? Or "caring"? Because anyone can have that sort of feeling, and it can be applied toward all sorts of different groups of things - animal, vegetable or mineral (just think of all the guys who "baby" their vehicles!).

 

i love gardening ... i "baby" my tomatoes. i probably pay more attention per day to my tomatoes than my dolls (dolls don't wilt if you don't water them)

 

For me, not at all. I avoid child like dolls, my only tiny is actually the manliest character I have. I think child dolls are cute for others, but I just have no desire to own them, I prefer adult characters. I'm in my twenties and have no desire to have children, now or ever, nor do I need anything to fill that gap...so, for some people it may be a mothering instinct and there's nothing wrong with it, but for me it's absolutely not.

*joins the motherinstinct-of-a-wet-paper-bag-group*

 

I think it's different for a living thing as opposed to a non-living thing like a doll or car. A living child, animal or even a plant needs you to pay attention to it, feed it and water it and so on, or it will cease to exist and (in the case at least of the child and animal) feel pain. Caring about those entities is necessary - they really do "need" you.

By contrast, dolls and cars only have feelings as projections of our own feelings, they don't feel or need on their own. I might care about making my doll pretty because I'd like to have a pretty doll to look at or feel accomplished that I did something with my doll. But I don't feel like that doll needs me or depends on me to nurture it. That would be way more responsibility than I bargained for when I bought it.

 

Nah.
I am mostly attracted to the grown men/women looking dolls.
I like cute too, but who doesn't like cute.

 

Yes, but not everybody goes for the cute childlike dolls with the big balloon foreheads and bubble eyes and button noses. And not everybody's hard-wired with the same urge to take care of things that have those features. Life experience (& also experiencing a wider variety of other people's collections) will soon open your eyes to the reality of that old Tweety Bird theory. ^^

The Tweety Bird Effect may well be at work in many doll collectors, but clearly not all. Some collectors, for instance, prefer to dive right into the Uncanny Valley to choose their dolls. Some like steely-eyed musclemen. Some like goddessy types with huge knockers. Some like zombies and revenants and hideous mechanical demons. Not exactly the things you think of getting all gushy & broody & maternal over. One can't draw any overarching conclusion about what spurs "everybody" to purchase any kind of doll.

The reason the topic makes some people bristle is because it's the first/only reason that Muggles ever seem to come up with for "why does anybody collect dolls" = "must be using them to make up for a lack of children". Of all the myriad reasons people have for collecting anything, too few people are willing to even imagine any other reason that doll-collectors may have, besides "child surrogate". Thus, topical defensiveness. Peeps are sick of justifying themselves to outsiders, so they don't care to sugarcoat their words in here.

 

I like children just fine. Especially with a nice Bearnaise sauce.

For the most part, my view of children is that they're fine as long as they belong to somebody else and that that somebody else keeps them to themselves.

I actually had the Hubby ask me one time if I was getting into the dolls because The Boy had moved out and we were officially empty-nesters. That was met with a rather irritated no on my part. I have a child. I neither need nor want any others. Under the TMI banner, I've taken the extra surgical step and made it next to impossible for me to bear any more children. Best decision I've ever made.

I have dolls because they are a physical representation of the characters I created that are near and dear to my heart. To see and be able to touch them makes me happy and spurs on my creativity. They are not child dolls as all of mine are of legal age (and look it) and in sexual relationships that I write about and sometimes photograph then engaging in. Taking that path if I thought of them as my children... ewwww. So not right on so many levels.

I have had doll people call my dolls my kids and I've been quick to correct them in that they are not and that I don't like them referred to that way. They are my Resin Army or even The Boys (I only have male dolls), but they are never my kids and certainly never my son.

 

Aww sniffle. I feel like I should go get the scarlet A or something and brand myself because I have kids and even have enjoyed them a great deal. And continue to! They're both wonderful people who are growing up talented, amusing, and loving.

But they certainly weren't and aren't the reason for my existence. I didn't tolerate kids very well until I had some of my own, so I can appreciate the sentiment (until they're a bit older they are not much more than noisy, smelly time-suckers).

Still, this comes up from time to time and always makes me bristle in the other direction. I don't look down on anyone for deciding NOT to have kids. My gosh, that's really not one of those decisions you can make for someone else. EVER. For that reason I feel both sad and ... oh I don't know, marginalized? when I hear people talk about having children as though it makes me some sort of moocow

Nor do the kids actually have much of anything to do with my dolls or my nurturing of, say, my cats. I'd add the plants, but I tend to kill all of THEM. And I'd be reeeealllly scared if I had produced anything like some of these resins of mine ^_^.

Offered as food for thought only. It's kind of one of those things where you feel one way or the other about it and that's pretty much all there is - but think about the folks on the other side before making it sound as though their particular choice makes them somehow lesser beings. Purdy please?

 

Wow, that's totally not the vibe I was getting from this thread! I felt like it was more of a "to each her/his own" kind of thing.

 

I agree with Jane, I don't see that sort of attitude at all in this thread :\

 

Just read through the whole thread and didn't pick up that vibe either, though I guess I can see how someone may have. Everyone thinks differently after all.

I guess I'm part of the mothering-instincts-of-a-wet-paper-bag group, I've never had the slightest desire to reproduce. I don't mean this in an offensive way, but most babies creep me out a little, especially newborns. It's not that I dislike children, heck, sometimes I even enjoy their company, but overall I like them more if they're someone else's

That being said, I quite like the child bjd's, I think they're cute and I like that I can dress them up in cute outfits (which would otherwise look a tad silly on a more mature doll). In fact I plan on acquiring a few more before I look into getting a larger one. It has nothing to do with wanting to mother it or nurture it for me either, I don't compare it to anything living which does require that. The most nurturing I do is when it comes to my plants (though clearly I suck because they keep dying on me...that or I have a suicidal garden >_>) and my pets, though I don't see them as my children, they're my little buddies ^_^

Some people might think it has to do with being motherly, others may not, I say whatever floats your boat. I try to enjoy things to the fullest, in this case bjd's, no matter what others may think. Life's too short to even try pleasing others, so I let them think whatever they want

 

Unfortunately, that's the other thing that really annoys me about these threads... It's well-nigh-inevitable that someone who took the "parent path" will show up and take it all very personally. They like to wag their fingers at those of us who made other choices, as if our NOT having kids is, in some way, an invalidation of their own. Some kind of attack or insult to their reproduction.

If the thread lasts long enough, they may even start in on all of us for being "child-haters". That's what happened last time.

 

Now, now thinking like this doesn't help in the LEAST bit. So let's just all keep civil okay?

 

I'm being perfectly civil, thank you. I've just seen more than a few of these threads over the last few years and I know how they all seem to end. No matter how nice the childless play it, or how often we say "to each their own"... As we all have in this thread... Someone always seems to take offense or claim persecution.

That's one of the big reasons I'd prefer to keep the entire issue of dolls and children seperate. One does not equal the other. End of story.

 

A good point. So then the opinions expressed on this thread are perhaps not neccessarily those of the general doll-collecting population, but those of a select group? A smaller percent of an already small percent of our entire society? I guess that puts us in the extreme minority whether pro or con for "doll=child substitute."

... Just when I begin to think I'm not as weird as people tell me ...

 

not for me. I'm in my mid 20's, I don't ever want kids, and I don't like dependency at all. (Heck, i feel like a little pet like a hamster or bunny is too much dependency for me!) My doll character is a grown woman. Though really, i treat my doll like an art outlet more than a character or a creature of some sort. She mostly hangs around my room looking neat-o, keeping my couch from getting lonely, unless i'm sewing for her or styling her. I don't really cuddle her or snuggle her either. (Ok, unless i've got a PMS-y sad-on... then maybe she gets a cuddle...)

Oh yeah, and i'm glad for the future of humanity that other people ARE totally into having kids. To each their own. I"m just not totally psyched about it and I'm really into other things that I wouldn't get to do if I had kids. Raising kids is important and difficult and I'm glad other people want to do it. People who aren't me. I'm sure some of those people raising their kids into nice, fun people are glad that someone is out there doing grunt labor making movie props, sets and specialized wardrobe like I do...heh, maybe.

 

We all collect giant, freaky-looking, insanely expensive toys. Of COURSE we're as weird as people tell us.
It sort-of goes along with the territory.