Barbie and me!

So my morning Wall Street Journal read started with an article about Barbie. Yes, run off elections in Afghanistan, secret developments on the health care reform front, and this health care expert is reading an article about Barbie.

Did you know that she has had 130 difference careers since 1959? That's slightly less than the number of companies I have worked for. In the 1960s, she was an astronaut. In the 1980s she wore power suits, just like me. She even wore Jackie Kennedy's bob cut.

Even when I knew that bound feet and waist too small to accommodate ribs was not reality, I knew that any and every career that I could qualify for was a possibility. Hey, if she could do it while trying not to tip over from the upper body weight and the tiny feet, it would be easy for me.

Mostly, as girls, we knew that Barbie was plastic and an fantasy. Apparently, we had one up on designer Ralph Lauren. In our world, Barbie was just a doll. Some where along the way designers like Mr. Lauren forgot that. Firing a model for weighing 120 lbs and photo-shopping her until her head is bigger than her waist is just...crazy. I remember 120 lbs...let's see, I was 12 years old. See to me having a doll is pretty harmless, but taking real live people and photo-shopping them or requiring them to starve themselves to meet a vision is dangerous.

For my generation, Barbie was plastic...for girls now the models on magazines look like they are flesh and blood. Our daughter is in fashion school, so we watch a lot of model/designer "reality" (yeah, right) TV. When the competing models were telling one girl that she could never win. "They won't go with a plus size girl" (she wore an size 8), I was ready to blow. When the speaker of the house is so plastic surgeried-out that she can't express dismay? Houston, we have a problem.

So please give me back the days of Barbie, with the 130 careers and the you can be anything spirit. When we knew she was just a really pretty doll. Kim Kardashian run that picture with the cellulite.

This Black Barbie will proudly exhibit my Rocky the Flying Squirrel triceps, my less than flat tummy and my dimples...not in my face cheeks.

But thanks Barbie for letting me know as a kid that the only reality that mattered was I didn't have limits! Hey, what did Ken do for a living?