Browsing Category Lifestyle and Culture

Berjuan Toys, based in Spain is bringing a breast feeding doll to the U.S. Proponents say that the doll is designed to teach nurturing skills. Those in opposition believe that it is just one more unsuitable toy that could force young girls to grow up too fast.

Here’s how the breast feeding doll works. A little girl puts on a halter that comes with the doll. Flower petals on the halter fit over the girl’s breasts. When the child brings the doll’s mouth to the flowers the doll makes a sucking sound. And there you have it, a pretend mother breast feeding her baby.

Things have certainly progressed from the days when toy makers created soft and cuddly dolls that cried, drank from a tiny bottle, and peed. In the same decade talking baby dolls arrived on the market. In 1959, Barbie moved like a new kid on the block into the doll neighborhood, and her curvaceous body had some parents saying “Enough already!” But it wasn’t. Barbie soon got a boyfriend doll named Ken, and OMG did the controversy heat up. Now fast forward to the present where the debate revolving around the breast feeding doll is hotter than a ticket to a Lady Gaga concert.

The main concern of many adults is whether the formally named Breast Milk Baby is an appropriate toy or one designed to encourage little girls to emulate adult behavior when they should be enjoying the innocence of childhood. And, in light of the fact that the NCMEC reports that 800, 000 children under the age of 18 turn up missing each year, I can only wonder if a young girl sitting alone on a park bench “breastfeeding” her doll would be just one more attractive target for a pedophile lurking nearby.

Speaking of adult behavior, when I see young children made up, dressed up and then put on stage to perform like gyrating vamps in a child beauty pageant, I can’t help but think of Jon Benet Ramsey and the potential for more child abuse. Three weeks ago, one of the children from the cable TV show Toddlers and Tiaras shook her booty while performing “Cutie Patootie” on The View.  And not to miss a beat, the French magazine Cadeaux  recently drew much criticism for publishing steamy and sexualized images of a ten year old model wearing stiletto heels. According to one TV talk program some of the photos in the spread were too risqué to show the audience.

What is scarier than coming face-to-face with Freddie Krueger, the fictional character from the Nightmare on Elm Street horror film series? It is the thought that someone on EBay laid out nearly $1 million dollars for a Casey Anthony latex Halloween mask. Some believe that the 100 plus bidders may have been fake, but reportedly they all have legitimate EBay accounts. According to HLN and Tampa Bay Online the winning bid was actually $999,900. Not only is that really scary, it’s sad.

How much faith can one have in a court system that frees an Orlando, Florida woman, who by all evidence was partly or entirely responsible for the disappearance and subsequent murder of her own two year old child, then convicts a mother in the death of her 4 year old who was struck and killed as the mother jaywalked with her three children across a busy street while trying to get home? 

Raquel Nelson, the 30 year old, Marietta, Georgia pedestrian was convicted of reckless conduct, improperly crossing a roadway and second-degree homicide by vehicle, while the driver of the van who killed Nelson’s son and injured the mother and another child, admitted that he had been drinking and using painkillers before getting behind the wheel got six months on a hit-and-run charge. What they hey???

After more than 125,000 people joined in an online petition campaign asking for mercy, Judge Kathryn Tanksley handed Nelson a year’s probation, ordered 40 hours of community service and offered her a new trial.

The suburban mother who appeared on NBC’s Today’s show twice this week said, “There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to go through this again,” then added that she is weighing her options.