My goodness that is a fancy Barbie!

Hey guys! Today I want to talk about something important to me without getting preachy, but just to tell you, true and honest, the way I can see it from my own heart. ❤️

The topic today is curvy Barbie and I speak of this now even though it has actually been a few years since Mattel released curvy, tall, and petite sizes in their new Fashionista line.

I wasn’t really paying much attention to Barbie back then. To be brutally honest, my own initial impression was similar to the memes mocking the ‘fat Barbie’.

I would see curvy Barbie and think, yeah, no, eww, she looks so fat, like me. I was still so wrapped up in the distorted delusions of my youth.

I thought there was no way that the mainstream would ever accept a curvy Barbie. Just like there was no way in a million years that they would ever accept me, not out in the open like that, not on display. Shameful.

And to actually give those fat/ugly Barbie dolls to little girls to play with? Double shame. Absurd. No way! Like any brainwashed victim, I was holding fast to those skewed ideals.

So it took a long time for me to get to where I am today. But I am here now to tell you that after all those years of hurling abuse at my own body, I have finally thrown the shackles off.

Curvy Barbie, I am here for it! Just like I am now finally all in, no holds barred for normalizing normal, healthy bodies in every corner of the media.

You know, you can’t fully recognize how much it really means, how much it affects you, shakes you to the center of your very core, when you see your own body type, a real body, displayed unfiltered, unabashed and unapologetic in doll form, as well as in the media.

Because you can’t fully appreciate it until you actually experience it. Only then can you begin to learn to embrace and accept the long overdue, justified, legitimate reality of the need for it.

That first step was a catalyst of epic proportions, and to me the momentum of it is still overwhelming.

For me, it threw me sideways, knocked me on my head. At first, I was horrified, absolutely mortified, how dare they humiliate me like that? But you know what, that’s just what outdated and downright wrong thinking needs, to be concussed.

I have to be honest and say that I teared up more than a little while writing this.

For the first time, I feel truly connected and seen. It is the same way I feel when undergarment ads with real body models pop up on my screen.

It took me awhile to get here, I know. You just don’t realize how deeply you have been rooted in and affected by societal body shaming until you see your own normal body, not hidden away, not the unlucky one, but being hailed as acceptable, beautiful enough to be put on display, to be made into an entire doll fashion line even.

I now understand why it is so important for young girls to see and normalize these body types too.

Without even realizing what was happening, my inner monologue, upon seeing so much body positivity in exclusive mainstream media, began to change.

Actually, it went a little crazy. My brain, the often negative and over critical, was being pushed over constantly and automatically to affirmations instead. It was like, Ohmygoodness! I look like that! She’s a model and she looks like me! I must be okay. I can be okay now. See, world! I AM okay just the way I am!

Without any conscious effort at all, my mind automatically went after those positives, rather than the negatives that had arrived and long settled, due to the countless images the media had shamed me with in the past, the things that had sent me spiralling for years.

Little sparks of joy. Seeing normal sized women in the spotlight, my inner person has suddenly gained validation.

And I didn’t even know that it was gone. After years of it being so ingrained in us, we don’t even realize that it is something that we have missed. Like a gaping hole in the wall that I’ve been tiptoeing around for years, suddenly it’s being filled.

Looking at that photo, I am sad for that girl. Look how radiant I look, how proud, yet I couldn’t fully enjoy that moment because all I could think about at the time was all the superficial garbage that society has been feeding us forever. It’s toxic, and it eats away whole lives.

Growing up, we actually didn’t even have Barbie dolls. It wasn’t really something we were into at the time. Even today, I don’t collect Barbie, preferring instead the freaky, funky, flawed beauty, and wild child originality of the Monster High dolls.

Despite being absurdly thin dolls, something Mattel has been working to amend recently, I was mainly drawn to the Monster High message of acceptance, flaws and all. It felt like home to me. It was where creative people like me belonged, not in the perfect plastic world of the Barbie doll brand.

Let your freak flag fly.

It was a message that said, we are all different and that’s okay. It’s okay to be flawed. It’s what makes you special. Hang onto that, and don’t ever change.

It was something that no one, not Barbie, not Bratz, not Disney princess in all of their fake, perfect plastic, overly enhanced, unrealistic, ideal fairytale fantasies, had ever said.

We were instantly hooked.

But today, and after all that has been said and done, I actually went ahead and bought myself a curvy Barbie doll. Why? Why after all this time, and really since I don’t even collect Barbie dolls at all, why now?

Because she looks like me, you guys! Not like fat me, but just like normal me who was really very normal all along.

For once, Barbie looks like a normal human being to me, and I don’t even have to pretend. When I saw her, I kinda did a little joy dance inside.

Little sparks of joy.

Now that is something that I can get behind because let’s be real, above all we want our children to be proud of us as the strong, beautiful, unique women we are. We want our kids growing up with images and dolls that emulate and celebrate real people, mothers, aunties, wives, not perfect plastic, celebrity clones.

So yeah, curvy, tall, petite Barbie, bring it all on! I am mad about it, and I am mad about this mad, wonderful world where I get to raise my daughter in acceptance and pride of her body rather than shame.

The only downside I can see is how to dress these dolls? Unfortunately, all of these different body type Barbie dolls are not interchangeable with the original Barbie’s clothing, and so they don’t have a lot of wardrobe options yet. We’re told perhaps sometime in the future, there will be more outfits to choose from, but let’s be real, it’s been years.

I must admit, I do enjoy a challenge though, so maybe I can find some patterns to sew for her. Wish me luck!

I hope you didn’t mind me getting real with you all just then. I hope I didn’t get too preachy, either. Sometimes, when a thing is close to your heart, the proper words can get lost.

So what are your thoughts? We are always so interested in what you, our loyal doll readers have to say! 😊❤️

As for life, we are still in the middle of some major changes which involves packing for a move. We are also in the grip of a bitter cold snap. Extreme cold warnings with temps down as low as -47C some days with the wind chill. However, next week it promises to warm up above zero.

With that I should bid you all goodnight. Stay warm everybody! And have a very happy holiday season! Merry Christmas wishes to all those who celebrate!

Leave a comment below!

❤️❤️❤️