Mum Creates Breastfeeding Barbie To Educate Children About Motherhood

A mother has created a breastfeeding Barbie doll to break down the stigmas surrounding motherhood.

Mother-of-two Betty Strachan, 28 from Brisbane, wants to help children better understand breastfeeding and motherhood, so she turned her hobby of repainting dolls into a business, selling breastfeeding, pregnant and parenting dolls on her Etsy shop.

Ms Strachman said that she first started making the dolls for her two kids – aged three and five – four years ago. However, when she realised others might be interested in the re-booted Barbie dolls. she made it into a business. She told the Huffington Post that making a breastfeeding doll was unintentional. Being a member of a mothers’ group, she said that she remembered one day, she was drawing the new face on a Barbie doll, which looked like the embodiment of the entire group.

So, she decided to imitate the positioning of a latched baby with an old figurine, and she called the doll the “Mamas Worldwide Barbie”.

Since Ms Strachan started selling both her breastfeeding and pregnant Barbie dolls online, both have proven exceptionally popular, but what’s more important for her is that her dolls are also helping to educate kids that not all women should look the same.

“Growing up, it always struck me as odd that there wasn’t as much diversity in the doll world as there could or should be.

“Not every child is born with blonde hair and blue eyes. Some have freckles, some have gaps in their teeth.

“When I became a mother, seeing the effect of the toys children are exposed to first hand, I noticed that the lack of diversity could be potentially damaging psychologically.

“A girl with brown skin and dark eyes may look at a light skinned doll and wonder why it’s classed as beautiful and she is not,” Ms Strachan writes on her Etsy page.

Ms Strachan’s dolls have also helped to normalise breastfeeding for the young girls who own them.

“[When] everyone in my mother’s group thought it [the dolls] was great, I posted Mamas Worldwide Barbie on my Instagram page.

“After that, I received a few requests to make more, and I realised that it was really something that should be available – because, like most things that society deems unacceptable, educating children is the way to erase the stigma behind it [breastfeeding],” she said.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk