Playing with dolls

I never had a doll or wanted one my sister loved her dolls. Now Im a mother and grandmother my sister is single and childless

Just like me and my sister mine both played with dolls and so do the grandchildren. Boys and girls.
The important thing here is play.. Not sure it prepares them for parenthood but interactions that promote conversations, and using their imaginations not be bad.

I loved my dolls but my sister hated them. Both teachers. Both mothers. Though she's an extrovert and I'm pretty introverted. Not sure if that means anything.

I had a very large doll with a beautiful china face and a pale violet Spanish, flounced dress, a doll which was my pride and joy but I had many others also.

Deedaa

I had dolls but really wasn't interested in them, I preferred playing cowboys and indians with the boys. My favourite toys were a collection of guns and a bow and arrows. When the hormones kicked in at 13 I dropped the boys' stuff and got interested in dressing dolls in historical costumes. Still not bothered about babies though. I hadn't intended to have any children but ended up with two. My daughter had a couple of Sindys but most of her time was taken up with gymnastics. She still went on to have two boys who both liked cooking but weren't bothered about boys.

Similar - Loved my Teddy, but hated dolls, wanted a gun and also loved climbing trees. I was given a pram for my unloved doll , but remember wheeling it down the bottom of the garden and leaving it there. I had 2 sons - so no dolls there. I have 2 grandchildren one boy and a girl, but she loves Peppa Pig, Unicorns and playing with her older brothers trains, they are both given more ‘educational’ toys- puzzles and games, etc, and similar, dolls are not particularly wanted. But I don’t think playing with dolls in early ages have anything to do with wanting and nurturing children. Children’s play is learning skills and if you only loved dolls then you obviously had a lean towards being a ‘carer’ …. A lovely path to take, but not for me however much I loved/love my sons and grandchildren.

I never wanted to play with dolls - I loved my bricks best and some little pipe cleaner people that I used to make up imaginary stories about! I always wanted Meccano but never got it - had to make do with pinching my brothers.
I married and had 3 children and hope I managed to do a reasonable job!

I loved playing with dolls, especially Tressy, Sindy and Miss Pearl. Loved dressing them up, had a big straw chest full of their clothes. Stopped about the age of 10.

Don’t think it has anything to do with wanting children though.

I played with dolls. My interest though was in having as many outfits either knitted or sewn by my DM and changing them every day. Never saw a doll with a nappy on when I was young.

My grandson 17 month old has just become an uncle. Mum has bought him a doll because he is besotted with the baby. He cuddles kisses it and rocks it. Hope this goes into his adult life

I didn’t like dolls. My mum kept buying them for me though. They got left outside, thrown off roofs and chucked into ditches and rivers.
Luckily my dad escaped such fates!

I didn’t like dolls but my mum kept getting them for me.
Practicing parenting ? Mine got their heads bashed on fences,thrown off roofs, left outside and chucked in rivers!
luckily my dad escaped these fates!

I dont know about little girls but my 4 year old great grandson found a baby doll in the load of toys I keep for visiting littlies and he loves to carry her around and push her in a little toy shopping cart

I work with children from 3months plus-current 2 and 3 year olds love to dress, feed, cuddle and put to bed the baby doll toys - it’s their choice to play with those particular toys (many other options) so play is varied. I like to think they mirror their Parents and my behaviour ❤️

My mom never played with dolls but had 7 children. Of the 5 girls I always was the only one playing with my doll. I have 2 children, my sisters have between 3 and 5. My own daughter loved her dolls, and her baby girl (4 months) is looking fondly at her first doll when we put it next to her 😊

I don't see the connection; I rarely played with dolls (when I did it was mostly to take them swimming with me) but went on to teach Kindergarten and catechism, and I have 3 of my own. My daughter never wanted dolls, and now she is a nun at the creche.

All of my grandchildren have played with dolls and some of them have been extremely attached to them.

Was bought dolls by relatives as then all girls were supposed to play with dolls & girlie things. My brother was bought Meccano but hated it. As soon as the Aunts had left the Meccano was mine. I loved saving pocket money for the latest cap gun & made bows & arrows with sticks pinched from my Fathers shed. Played 'Cowboys & Indians' in the bushes over our local park all day with the boys & a friend with same tastes as me. If I wasnt doing Tom Boy things I would have my nose in a book! At 78 I am still the same following motor racing & still have my nose in a book a lot! Didnt stop me trying to be a good Mum to my lovely DS. Hope I succeeded though you would have to ask him about that! Love my Grandchildren to bits & my DGS has his nose stuck in a book a lot too so managed to pass that on!

1Sister and I loved our dolls and they ‘matured’ with us. First as babies, to be nurtured and cosseted. Outdoors every morning to get some fresh air.
Then they were old enough to attend tea parties and eventually became the pupils for us to teach. That continued till Mum had a surprise baby and we abandoned dolls for the real thing.
Experience of the real thing put me off having children, until I discovered how ineffective any birth control method could be. Love my DC and my DGC.

V3ra

My grandson at 17 months old was given a baby doll for Christmas.
My daughter had trouble persuading my grandson to go to bed one evening, he hadn't finished giving his baby its bottle 😂

Phew - was starting to worry there would be no mention on here that it's fine for boys to play with dolls!

I had one doll Teresa who " walked" ish! I did her Auburn hair gave her a tattoo with a hot needle and a biro ( like granddad's!) But was not a girl who babysat , took babies for walks etc like my sis.
My darling GS played with dolly and pushchair etc and adores his little sisters, but a dyed in the wool car lover too! There's room for all types of play but I did see his caring and deeply loving side in the gentle way he 'sorted' dolly's blankets and his tenderness and caring that maybe is not apparent now specially in girls! It's as if it's an outright insult to suggest a girl likes dolls or babies come to that! They all think they're tough like the offensive spice girls(huge amount to answer for!) etc and cuddled her so I agree it does foster a meaningful essential personality trait.

Never liked dolls. Loved my soft toys. My teddy bear was my pride and joy. More than 70 years on I still love him and say hello to him every day (he sits on a chair on the landing). My other childhood soft toys were a rabbit (home-made) and a golliwog (no political correctness in the 1940s!).

I honestly cannot believe that playing with dolls turns little girls into good mothers later on, and that not playing with them, means that they have not "practised parenting skills" and are thus less likely to want, or to have children.

I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. I played with dolls until I was 14 or 15, some of my friends did too, others didn't. Some of us were not able to have the children we dearly wanted, others did and were good mothers, others decided and held to it that they did not want children.

My sister was not interested in dolls, but was an excellent mother.

In Denmark today, children are playing with dolls - both girls and boys. In the 1970s most mothers and nursery school teachers actively discouraged little girls from playing with dolls, wearing pink frilly clothes etc. and wanted them to wear dungarees or jeans and play with cars. These were the years of Women's Lib at its most strident.

The children of the 1970s grew up into the parents of the children born in the 1990s - most of whom have had excellent mothers and fathers, although none of them, had like my generation any practical experience of small children before they had their own.

We babysat from the age of 12 (before that if we had younger siblings or cousins) and knew how rewarding and how exasperating small children could be. One of my cousins, who had a younger sister 14 years younger than herself, decided never to have children as although she loved them "they were too much hard work" an opinion she formed when her much loved sister was a baby.

There have always been many good parents and some bad ones. Sadly, this is not likely to change.

What has changed is that today we hear about the bad parents, where previous generations hid that fact as carefully as they hid the fact that there were wife-beaters, or horror of horrors, women who beat their husbands!

I didn't have children for physical reasons. Would playing with dolls have changed that.? Honestly what a silly comment!

@watermeadow makes a very good point about how imaginative play should include the expression of parenting, learning parenting skills etc.
Every nursery includes plenty of dolls in its armoury of toys. The main differences you'd notice compared with when our kids were young is that they will be more ethnically diverse and that boys are not discouraged from playing with them.

I played with dolls as an older girl, Sindy, Barbie etc. I never had baby dolls or little girl/boy dolls, unlike my younger sister who adored them. I actually had no desire to play mummy, being absolutely horse mad from a young age. I also liked to play cowboys and Indians, ride my bike (when I wasn’t riding horses!) and other outdoor games. Indoors I loved to read and play with my huge collection of model horses although I did play with the teenage type dolls with my sister. I actually wasn’t a very girly girl at all a loathed the smelly, screaming, ugly bundles people called babies! I thought baby animals (especially foals!) were far more endearing! I had no desire to be a mum until I was in my late twenties. I had my three children close together in my early thirties to everyone’s astonishment as they’d given up hope of my maternal instinct, as evinced by my lack of dolls, ever appearing!

I always had dolls and played with them. My daughter had dolls but the novelty wore off by the time she was around 6. I have an 18 month old grandson and got him a soft doll with a magnetic mouth you an put a dummy on and a bottle to feed him. Bought the food accessories too. He loves giving him a bottle and his dinner. Boys should be given this opportunity too. Children have dad's as well. It wont last his love for dinosaurs is taking over but learning to care can only add to development