Faux babies

I suppose there is a line drawn between a real baby damaged in birth and a baby you buy and they can rationally distinguish the difference. My favourite china doll I dropped and smashed the hand . Her fingers were stuck back on with some sort of red glue. I didn't stop loving her. DD was born with uneven ears and it didn't mean we didn't love her. In fact she is quite stunning - not boasting I've just seen her on linkedin and thought she looks rather good and realised it's DD.

I saw a programme a while back about these 'babies', I found the concept a little disturbing but I kinda understood the need they were fulfilling within some of the women. However, one of the ladies opened a package in great glee to greet her newest 'baby', but unfortunatley it had been damaged in transit. I found it uncomfortable to watch her put it back in the bubble wrap and return it because it wasn't perfect....

The need to 'mother' is inborn, and very strong, in some women. Sometimes the real thing is denied, or that time of life has passed for them.

Absent, do tell us more. Why disturbing?

Do you find the thought of a woman fulfilling other basic needs in a different way, disturbing? Using a dildo for example? How is it different?

I can see that even if pretending you are a mum, aunty, grandma just for a brief interval of suspension of disbelief by cuddling a substitute baby, then that may well fill a sad, empty space - or maybe some people just enjoy pretending - like dressing up and being someone else for a bit.

In my early days working for the NHS many years ago, there was a hospital which had originally been a Workhouse and still retained that feel about it. The patients were all elderly, mainly suffering with dementia or just the effects of old age. A friend was a ward sister on a female ward and she recognised that for many of these lonely old ladies they lacked an outlet for their need to love and nurture. Dolls, dolls' prams, pushchairs, baby baths - load of stuff - were acquired and became the source of much needed recreation for some of the ladies. For some, their 'baby' went everywhere with them, was cuddled and cooed over. Interestingly, the need for some medications decreased substantially.

Just shows how we all have a different ' take' on things doesn't it?
I think that they obviously fulfill a need, but yes, a the same time are a bit disturbing. perhaps what we find disturbing is not the dolls themselves, or women having a doll, but we know there must be a mental imbalance there and that is what we shy away from? just a thought.

I find this incomprehensible and slightly disturbing.

I suppose I can understand Ethel how having these doll babies can help some women but I find it so very sad that they need them. It's bit like those pictures of apes nursing their dead babies. i don't like the idea that their needs are being commercialised either.

I went into a womans house once and she said 'mind the pram', I thought it was a real baby but it was a pretend one and she explained that she had 2 of these and took them out regularly in the pram and 'fed' and bathed them. She was such a nice person, she explained that living alone she had got into debt in a big way and her 'babies' were her comfort. She had just avoided the bankruptcy court by agreeing to have mental health advice and a debt counsellor. She spent her time knitting the most beautiful baby outfits and giving them to the baby unit at the local hospital. she understood that her dolls were not real but she just wanted someone to love so I think the dolls were a comfort at a time when things were bad. This lady had a boyfriend but did not live with him and there were pictures of her real grandchildren on the walls so I guess that when she was lonely her 'babies' seemed real to her.

I see nothing creepy or sad about this, some people turn to drink or drugs as a comfort, I just felt very sympathetic to this lovely lady.

Did anyone else have a Rosebud "Beautyskin" doll? They were made with very thin rubber over a soft stuffing, so quite realistic, and a very pretty moulded head. I still have the beautiful clothes my mother made for mine.
I called mine Penny but she was Rosebud in secret. I'd have been teased for calling her such a soppy name!

I never really took to dolls which meant I was rather a disappointment to my mother who loved making clothes for dolls that were raffled at the annual school fete. This thread has made me so grateful that I have my own little tribe of descendants!

Oh, I did love that song - 'I think I'm Going Back' was it? Dusty was the best...

Perhaps they have arrived at a time in their lives when they can simply enjoy playing with dollies again.

Reminds me of the Dusty Springfield song,

"Now there are no games
To only pass the time
No more coloring books,
No Christmas bells to chime...."

Having just read this thread, I popped down to the cellar to check whether my beloved (and slightly scary) Theresa, sitting in splendour on the windowsill there, is a Rosebud or a Pedigree. Sadly I discovered that she is a Made in Hong Kong, and that a big hole has appeared in her knitted blue dress, exposing her bum.

If it doesn't harm anyone else and makes them happy, do be it. It is a little sad they have a void in their lives that only a faux baby can fill.

Birmingham had a Super Prix in the 1970s, the words were grown in crocuses on a grassy bank along the track. They came up each Spring for several years. Once on a bus I heard a small boy loudly ask his mother why those flowers said 'Super Prix' pronouncing, of course, the x. I don't think anyone heard her reply above the laughter.

I've seen several references to 'fur babies' on social media, I think it began in the US.

Pinkprincess you reminded me when many years ago my DC and I were visiting someone in hospital (it was so long ago, I can't remember who now). DD had a soft body doll from France called Angelique. A nurse walked into the ward and stopped in horror when she saw me holding what she thought was a real baby by one foot.

Poor old Angelique is now just a head, hands and feet. Years later DD was herself horrified when she saw Wilbur her dog running off with her beloved doll. Hopefully we can one day get Angelique a new soft body and back to her original self.

Haha Alea, I like it! Years ago my son's little friend said he had to go home because he wanted to watch the Grand Pricks. it took a while for us to understand this.

Pinkprincess, your story reminds me of seeing one if those dolls strapped into a baby seat and left in a dark car park we were once in, we had to go and check it wasn't a real child!

A propos of very little, I once heard someone refer to " faux fur" as fox fur. Just that.

Yes Harrigran. Mine came with some lovely clothes, all hand sewn by my mum (no sewing machine). Wish I still had those clothes.

Funny that some of you should say that the lifelike dolls make you think of dead babies, because that is what the husband in the programme said, it was what repelled him about the doll his wife was buying.

Chloe! What a cruel child you were. poor dolly.