A lesson from Barbie
It was an average Thursday, the day a Barbie doll caused a heart and self-talk check.
Since cleaning out the garage a few weeks back, Elizabeth has enjoyed playing with her Barbies. This is due to the collection growing with the addition of the barbies and clothes from my childhood. Now a Snow White Barbie from 25 years ago is hanging out with a newer Rapunzel Barbie and a wooden legged Barbie of 50+ years ago (courtesy of my mom from her childhood).
There is quite the collection of clothes. The funnest part of playing with barbies (in my opinion) was always the dressing and redressing. Some are hand made, some are worn out from the years with frayed tears or elastic that doesn’t work anymore, from casual sport wear to gowns of a little girls delight.
One particular Barbie is at the heart of this tale. It was a Barbie that was given to Elizabeth last year for her 3rd birthday. Reporter Barbie, complete with a cute but professional purple dress, a microphone, and classy heals, this Barbie is part of a collection meant to inspire young girls that they can do all sorts of professions. And the last few years, the makers of Barbie have done a better job at proportioning the dolls to look more like real women. Reporter Barbie still has beautiful hair and a large-ish chest, but she also has wider hips and larger thighs. (You may already see where this is going...) In the dress she came in she looks classy and elegant and professional.
So I’m sitting with Elizabeth and she is having me change the outfits on all the barbies. So I put Ariel in a wedding dress, Snow White in a bathing suit, Rapunzel in a cute off the shoulder red dress, ballerina Barbie in pink to match her shoes. And then I come to Reporter Barbie. I try outfit after outfit and nothing fits. If I get it over her hips, I can’t do it up in the back. And if I manage to Velcro the back, it shifts the dress so high up that it doesn’t lay over the chest properly. And I start getting frustrated.
Here I am, sitting on the carpet with my girls getting frustrated with a Barbie because her hips are too wide and her thighs too thick. And I think to myself (thankfully not out loud) “GAH! If only she looked like the other barbies....”
Immediately alarm bells start ringing in my head and I can hear the self-talk of the past as I tried on clothes myself. “If only I looked like the models. If only my hips weren’t so wide or the thighs so thick. If only I could loose this baby weight faster.”
I had to speak truth to myself, sitting there on the carpet. It’s not the fault of the doll, it’s the fault of the clothes. They just don’t fit. She’s not meant to wear that. It is the same when I try on new clothes. Some clothes are not meant for my body and that is okay. It’s not my fault. I had a moment of compassion for this inanimate object, and some compassion for myself as well.
The lesson doesn’t end there, though if it did it would be a lesson worth remembering. In the end I found another dress that fit her. A beautiful evening gown of rich purple, all bejeweled with a matching choker and hair bow and purse. The cream of the crop, the best dress in the whole lot, a dress that makes her look like royalty, like she is headed to a state dinner at Buckingham Palace. Perhaps even a dress that Princess Kate would wear.
I know from experience that when I embrace my body (emphasis on the embracing) and clothe myself with items that are meant to fit, I feel like royalty, because I am. I am a daughter of the High King, uniquely and wonderfully made in his image.
PS #1. Yes, I know and believe that true beauty is what is on the inside. What makes a person beautiful is their love and kindness and compassion. It is a lesson I continually teach my girls. Perhaps I will write about this another day.
PS #2. Clothes, for better or worse, communicate so much to ourselves and others. In fact, the very first clothes, fig leaves sewn together, communicated Adam and Eve’s shame. For myself, clothes that fit properly communicate a subtle confidence I have to handle life; whether it is dressed up for a date with Bob or in my mom-jeans and t-shirt.
PS #3. I also recognize that for many in this world, the choice of what to wear is a privilege. And so I will work in my own life and in what I pass on to my girls to take away the power that our culture and society places in what we wear.
PS #4. You too are uniquely and wonderfully made, beautiful not because of what you wear but because of who you are.