Raising Confident Mixed Girls

I have two daughters and try to keep up with their rapidly changing interests. Thankfully, a few things remain constant: music, dance, and art. They love to create things. They love to make movies of themselves on our computer, to take pictures of themselves, and to paint and draw themselves.

They love playing with Barbies and Barbie online (despite some of my reservations about Mattel)

The Fab Girl Barbie Anna is so GLAM!!!

My oldest daughter loves to draw and make things out of clay.

Dad and daughter on a sunny day in clay: Father's day gift 2011 and an assortment of gifts for me.

My youngest loves to paint and loves Rihanna.

Smiling in the Rain w/Purple Umbrella-ella-ella 

And here they are with one of their many vlogs (video logs). They sing, they dance, and they show you a lot of their personality. (Look out Fanshen, Heidi and Jennifer--they could be your future replacements on MixedChicksChat!)

I sometimes worry a lot about whether or not they are growing up to be confident young women. Then I see things like this and I stop worrying (at least for a little while....I'm a mom--it's my job to worry!)

Featured on BlogHer: An Open Letter to the Mattel Corporation

Sometimes kids say things that are so unexpected that parents are literally left staring, open-mouthed. We may do all the right things, consider every angle and point of impact that our decisions could have on our children, and we may think we know exactly how our children will respond. But kids always find a way to surprise us. It seems like children are determined to send their  parents into that wild realm of the unknown, making us doubt ourselves and worry that we are scarring them for life.

Flickr photo by joanna8555 

As a woman, I had my doubts about bringing Barbie in to my home. I read, soul-searched and rationalized the implications of having the iconic doll in my house. Even after all of that thinking, Barbie made her way into my girls' lives. From the musical movies where Barbie is hero to the dolls and accessories that have made her such a popular toy for decades, we bought into it all. I thought a lot about exposing my girls to this warped image of womanhood, but was impressed by how much Mattel has done to make Barbie a confident young role model for girls. And that's why I was so surprised when I gave my daughters new Barbies as gifts and they gave me such a shocking response. It was so shocking that I felt the need to write to the Mattel Corporation about it. 

"An Open Letter to the Mattel Corporation," was first featured on Multicultural Familia and was recently picked up by BlogHer. You can read the letter and discuss it with the huge community of women on the website BlogHer.com, on Twitter (@BlogHer and @BlogHerCultures)
 and on the BlogHer Facebook page.






You can also read the original post at MulticulturalFamilia.com, a wonderful e-zine dedicated to sharing information and ideas with modern families.

I encourage any readers wo would like to share their thoughts on Barbie to send their own letters to the Mattel Corporation.  I sent this post to corporate.communications@mattel.com and received a response from ConsumerServiceCenter@fisher-price.com.  The more they hear from concerned parents, the more likely they are to make positive changes to their products.

Have your children ever shocked you with their response to something you gave them? Have they ever shed light on a slice of humanity that you'd never before considered? Out of the mouths of babes can come some very insightful things...