Exactly. They are expensive dolls, to be sure. That doesn’t make them a ‘racket’ though. Anymore than a Wii (which is ‘just a game,’ you know, same as the AG dolls are ‘just’ dolls) is a racket.
Depending on your kid, the AG dolls aren’t a bad use of your toy dollar. My daughter (now 21) had two AG dolls (Kristen & Josefina) and a Bitty Baby, and we were not rich people – my husband was in the Navy and I was a housewife. Her AG dolls were all bought for her as Christmas presents and they were her ‘big gifts’ those years. The year she got Josefina, her brother’s ‘big gift’ was a bicycle, which cost a bit more than her doll.
Not one person ever accused me of spoiling my son by buying him that $115 bike, but I had several people ridicule me for buying Doe a $95 doll. But the AG dolls were as good a value for Doe (in terms of play-time) as the bike was for Nick. Doe loved her AG dolls and played with them constantly. Between the ages of 7 & 10, they were her primary toys – she played with them far more than anything else she owned. Now that Doe is grown and in college, Josefina & Kristen are sitting on a shelf in her room waiting to be passed down to my grandchildren someday. Nick’s bike? It was sold at a garage sale a few years ago for $30…
One of my most vocally disapproving friends (she is still talking about how I spoiled Doe with that ‘ridiculous $100 doll’) used to buy her son a new video game console every time one was released. Plus games. She spent far, far more money on toys & ganes for her one kid than I ever did on both of mine. But when I pointed that out to her, she’d just say, “That’s different!” Irritating woman.
Now, if your kid just wants the doll because ‘everybody’ has one; and she plays with it for a week and then tosses it in the closet with the rest of her outgrown junk, then it would be a foolish use of funds. But that wasn’t the case with my daughter, nor does it sound like it’s the case for Dio’s girl.
I hear you. I don’t think my childhood was as sparse as yours and Blinking Duck’s but there were a lot of things I wanted that I wasn’t able to have.
I think of my kids as actual members of my family. They don’t have any earning power, but their wants are just as valid as mine, in my opinion. It may seem silly to me, because I don’t play with dolls, but all my knitting stuff seems silly to them. I don’t think they are spoiled either; there are limits on what they can have, and they are always very grateful. On the Christmas my daughter wanted a Bitty Baby (the American Girl baby doll), she was told that was all that Santa would be able to bring for her, and she was allowed to decide if she wanted it or not. Up until that point Santa usually brought a lot of smaller toys. She said she wanted the doll though, and she was happy. I don’t think $100 is too much to spend on Christmas, not at all. If you really can’t afford it, fine. But if you can…
I mean, these are well made dolls. When I was a little girl, my grandmother bought me a very nice baby doll (not American Girl, they didn’t have those) and I still have her. And she still looks wonderful. She sleeps beside my daughter’s Bitty Baby as a matter of fact. And now my daughter will more than likely have two lovely dolls to pass down to her daughter, if she wants. They will last longer than a wii, for certain! (Which my son has, and which was a joint gift from me and a couple family members)
I can honestly say there is nothing my children have truly longed deeply for that they have not received. The vast majority of their whims have been left unfulfilled, but the things they truly want I always manage to get for them, because I can, and because I love them.
OK. Use a bread or bag twist tie. Put the string in the middle, fold the twist tie in half, making sure that the string is secure, and then twist the tie enough that it will stay together while you push it through. This won’t be ideal, as the wire is really quite soft and will deform easily, but it’s easier than working the string through by hand. Safety pins, incidentally, come in some pretty small sizes up to the ones that are about three inches long. Some of them are coilless, which I think are ideal for threading things through casings.
When my daughter was growing up, she was very close to one cousin in particular, and she had a very good friend in this neighborhood. I don’t know how many times we called up the guardian or parents and said that we were going to go to the pizza parlor or Mexican eatery, and could Barbara or Christina come along? I made sure to call myself and get the ADULT on the phone, after one disastrous incident where the girl pretended to call and get permission. Boy, did THAT lead to some interesting discussions with the whole group. Most of the time, though, Lisa’s friend or cousin received permission to eat with us. We didn’t have much money when Lisa was a kid, but we did make sure that she got most of what she really, really wanted. She didn’t get everything, and she certainly didn’t get much in the way of things that she only somewhat wanted, but she did have her Care Bears (ugh!) and her Rainbow Brite dolls and her Barbies.
I think the issue with the dolls is not the price, but that you are paying so much for the brand name.
Nothing else does what a Wii does. And your bike probably costs the same amount as any comparable bike. But there are thousands of dolls at a fraction of the price that do exactly the same thing an American Girl doll does. The only things that make these dolls special is that they have the “American Girl” name attached to them.
Not only that, but I can play my Wii with my mom or dad, my roommate Alex, and my girlfriend - that’s a 30-year age range, and both genders, playing together wirelessly from different states.
Let’s see your silly doll do that!
In all seriousness though, yes, AG is a racket worthy of the Italian mob. That said, I’d rather see girls with one AG doll, books, clothes, etc, than an equivalent investment in Barbie or Bratz or other dolls that, imho, are a terrible influence on kids.
Well, again, part of what makes them cool (and worth the money, IMO) is the branding. I’m speaking here of the historic dolls. There are plenty of 18 in. dolls out there (leaving quality aside for a moment), but what you are paying for (at least, what I paying for) was the historical backstory on each doll – a well-researched and well presented backstory. In that respect no other dolls ‘do’ what an AG doll does either.
At the end of the day, a Wii is a video game set; comparable to any other video game set, just like an AG doll is a doll; comparable to any other 18 in. doll. But if you want a Wii, with it’s particular attributes, you have to get (and pay for) a Wii. And, if you want an AG doll, with those particular attributes, a Target knockoff will not do.
And I was only addressing the ‘branding’ – the AG dolls are very high quality dolls; much higher quality than the cheaper knockoffs. In addition to her 2 AG dolls, my daughter also had a Target knockoff. The Target doll definately wasn’t heirloom quality (meaning built to last) Doe palyed with her for a year or 2, then her head and arm came off and that was the end of the Target doll. Admittedly, Doe is disabled and was pretty hard on her toys – darned fine motor problems! But the quality differential was very marked. The Target doll cost around $25; Doe’s AG dolls cost (at that time) around $95. The quality difference was worth the price difference, IMO.
Bingo. To a connoisseur of dolls, an AG doll is very different than the Target knockoff. But to someone who doesn’t play video games, a Wii isn’t that much different than a DS. (I disagree that nothing else does what a Wii does - we’ve had really similar experiences with the EyeToy for the Playstation - we are a Playstation/Wii/XBox family. ) My Jetta has four tires and a steering wheel and gets me around town just fine - my husband’s Audi is was a hell of a lot more expensive - and as far as I can tell, gets him to work in fundamentally the same way as my Jetta. I have a $6 bottle of wine in my basement and a $100 bottle of wine in my basement - and you might think they taste the same, but I know which one is which.
We all have our preferences - I might think a Hershey’s bar is perfectly ok chocolate - you might prefer to spend more for a Vosges bar.
We don’t have an AG doll in our house (I have a nine year old daughter) because my daughter has never shown any interest in them (and I’ve tried because to me they are potentially a door into an interest in history).
Well said. Everyone has a monkey on their back. I know a lot of people might dub me insane for splurging on $40 foundation when I could get drugstore foundation for way cheaper. It all depends on what you’re into. Whether it be dolls or books or make up or video games or music or clothes.
Were Cabbage Patch dolls expensive? I was never much of a doll person, but I had a Cabbage Patch doll. I don’t remember if I specifically asked for it or if my parents picked it out as a good Christmas present. My parents didn’t, as a general rule, give us expensive gifts, so I’ve always assumed they were reasonably priced.
The original Cabbage Patch dolls that were handmade WERE expensive. They were $40 when they were first introduced in '78 (according to their web site), and I could swear they got up to $100 by the time a friend of mine bought one in the late '80s. Then they extended the line and went mass-market, and weren’t quite as pricey.
My sister had one of the first Cabbage Patch dolls. It was a gift from her boyfriend (who she later married) around '80; his mother had bought several at a big craft show in Georgia and sold them in her small town dress shop. The funny thing is the mother stopped carrying them because she only sold a couple due to the price (there was no wholesale so she had to buy them for the same price anybody else would then mark them up) and the one my brother-in-law gave my sister was one of the leftovers.
Around Christmas '82, she sold the last remaining one (which was in her house and not her shop) for a small fortune to a rich guy from Florida who’d taken out an add offering - I forget how much, but let’s say $1000 in today’s money (it was some similarly absurd amount) for his little girl. When told my sister had one he offered the same money for her’s but, to her husband’s horror (they were newlyweds and in need of money) she declined. Like everything else she’s ever owned she still has it; no idea what it’s value is now (probably nowhere near what she was offered then).
I remember a major cottage industry springing up of every old lady who could sew churning out CP knockoffs. They were like the Xavier Roberts originals (the soft overstuffed fabric head and body) because the patterns had been duplicated and were sold at K-Mart, TG&Y, etc., as “Fat Body Dolls” or whatever (something that had nothing to do with CP).
Of course it’s a racket. For one thing, it’s owned by Mattel. For another, what toy company isn’t trying to take all your money so your kids will be happy?
As for the OP. I skipped the first few pages of this thread because I was hoping Dio was joking that he didn’t know that American Girl is a bleeping racket. I mean, C’MON!
