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Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children

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jrhys
01/03/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
OK if you met a great guy but you met his mom and she was totally into these dolls... and then HE got you one for xmas so you could 'practice' being a mom and then he got al obsessed with the doll and carried it around like a papa- but he was perfect in every other way - would you break up with him? Just wondering. (Fictional scenario but still...)
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bananaprincess
01/03/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
when you have a still birth or a neonatal death, they take the baby away pretty fast, then you have to bury it. I can understand how holding one of these could help.I didn't watch the clip, though.
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Betty Bea Getty McClanahan
01/03/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
At least these are dolls...if they think having a REAL baby is as easy as having a lifelike doll, then gooo ahead and have your doll.

But at the same time, I really feel sorry for them. The joy and literal, pure happiness I get around my little one is unparalleled. These women obviously have felt the pull to have a child but are unable or unfit to have one, and are trying to fill that void with something as close as they can get. I totes understand wanting to fulfill that longing.
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CakesAndAle
01/02/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
I wonder why it's so difficult for you to get a real baby?

creepy much?
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la.donna.pietra
01/04/09

@CakesAndAle: 1) Because everyone wants them. 2) Because nobody wants them once they turn about 2 or so.
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Ulookinatmyjunk, JOC
01/02/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
Everytime I hear stories about the "Real Babies", all I can think about is that book/movie "Children of Men". In the book, for some inexplicable reason people lost the ability to reproduce and society pretty much lost hope and went bat-shit crazy.
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RainyKate
01/02/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
Once, in a small MS town, I sat in a diner on Sunday and watched the after church crowd file in. One woman walked in carrying a baby, which I thought was very odd because she was obviously seriously ill. Her body was stooped and achingly thin (so thin that her age could have been 30 or 70) with no sign of having given birth recently. I thought, "She must be the grandmother" and waited for the mother to enter.

Instead, it was one of these dolls, which got passed around to about 10 women seated near her, all of whom cooed over her and the baby, one woman going so far as to "burp" the doll.

It struck me as such a huge moment of kindness on the part of the other women. The first woman was so obviously ill and had so clearly become attached to the doll, and the women seemed to cheer her by making a fuss over it.

Of course, it was sad too.
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Kivrin
01/02/09

@RainyKate (has scarlet fever): Sounds like the movie Lars and the Real Girl. Have you seen it? I liked it much more than I thought I would...
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Mafalda para Presidente
01/02/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
There was a woman on a special about these dolls that could have children, but chose not to. Instead she carried her "reborn" baby around as if it were the real thing, dressing it, taking it out for walks on a stroller, getting attention from strangers who thought it was real.

I'm not going to lie, I think there should be a DMS category for this. Creepy.
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amenfro
01/02/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
@chamomile:

Again, my Jez is acting nuts. My dad did the same thing. He borrowed one of my little sister's dolls, stuck it in her old car seat, and prominently placed it in his car (usually the center of the backseat) . . . so he could ride in the HOV lane without a cop busting him.
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VaginaWig is A Merkin
01/02/09

@amenfro: When I worked at an adult toy store, we would have people come in and buy blow up dolls for this purpose. Clothes+hat+sunglasses= riding in the HOV lane with a passenger.
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amenfro
01/02/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
@velvetfistfuloflove:

Sorry about the unattached response, but my Jez is failing me today.

John Waters presumably doesn't walk around with his doll like it's a live human.

Also, isn't it a bit odd that these women are spending that much time and effort with these "children," creating real psychic bonds to the exclusion (in some part) of their other relationships?
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Kivrin
01/02/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
I've seen a lot of people suggesting that these women get cats or dogs instead, but have you ever watched "It's Me or the Dog" on Animal Planet? So many women on that show flat-out admit that they treat their dogs like their children -- and their dogs are severely dysfunctional. You can't really treat an animal like a human child. So maybe dolls are the best option for these women!

Just a thought...
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justcallmespartacus
01/02/09

@Kivrin: True, it wouldn't be good for the animal to treat it like a human child and maybe that's what these women would do. But I think more to the point, these women are just desperate for something that they can love and care for. You can certainly love and care for an animal, even to near excess at points, without causing any significant dysfunction to the animal. Perhaps dolls are the healthier choice for these women, but it's also possible that they just need something that can reciprocate love. A pet can do that.

Although your point is valid because some of those people on "It's Me or the Dog" are just as loony as these folks.
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Kivrin
01/02/09

@justcallmespartacus: Very true re: the reciprocation that comes with having a pet. (Or a dog, anyway -- cats can be cold little boogers!) In general, I'm not sure there is a perfectly healthy outlet for these women's affection...I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that they could probably all use some extensive talk therapy!
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YourScreenplaySucks
01/02/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
This [jezebel.com] remains the funniest picture ever published on Jezebel and portrays my kneejerk response to these kinds of dolls.
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GirlFailer
01/02/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
I think it's really awful they couldn't have babies of their own, when they seem to really want them. But, they are throwing birthday parties for dolls. And staying at home caring for them all day. This might sound harsh, but it really might be better that they are caring for dolls, and not real children.

I had an aunt who couldn't have children of her own, so she tried to adopt. She only wanted a baby, though. It is extremely difficult to adopt an infant, rather than a child that is a bit older. She never got an infant, but she does collect porcelain dolls now. This seems in the same vein, but a little more extreme. Maybe these women weren't able to adopt babies either.
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jrhys
01/03/09

@Fromthehallsofmontezuma: Yeah these ladies are little too Flowers In the Attic/ Henry Darger for me to think they'd be good adoptive parent. Darger also tried to adopt a little girl. Of course, he was turned away.
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Fate'sBitch
01/02/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
In the book Children of Men (which is way different than the movie) some women go a little crazy and have symptoms of false pregnacies and then a fake birth and dolls much like these which they have stollers and birthday parties for. It is very messed up.
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chamomile
01/02/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
Okay, promise you won't tell I told...but my older sister went through a very disturbing phase where she drove around in her car with a doll in a car seat. Pretended it was a big joke, but it really wasn't, deep down.
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DangerMouse
01/02/09

@chamomile: Are you sure she wasn't just trying to get into the HOV 2+ lane? Because I have contemplated that.
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ceejeemcbeegee is not here
01/02/09

@DangerMouse: Heck... I've done it once or twice. The key is to put a blankie over the carseat and one of those suction cup mirrors and be sure to glance back at the baby/doll when the po-pos come by. ;-)
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Ultraprison!
01/02/09

@chamomile: i have a more disturbing story: my aunt had a second child much later in life, when her first son was 16. so when he drove the car, it always had the baby seat in it, usually with a blanket wadded up in it. at intersections, he would pretend to reach back, scream at the car seat, and punch it, so strangers would think he was hitting the baby.

deeply, deeply upsetting.
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jrhys
01/03/09

@sushi314 (is re-transplanted to chicago for grinchmas): Does it make me evil that I think that's funny?
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freya_kahlo
01/02/09

In reply to Women Living With Fake Baby Dolls Treat Them Like Real Children
Yeah, dolls are creepy - but I feel sad for these women, as a childless woman myself. Society doesn't exactly teach women how to redirect our nurturing instincts if we don't have children. I've certainly babied a few cats over the years, so I can't really judge. I try to put my creative and nurturing energy into other things now - like artwork and dating younger men (haha, just kidding sort of). It has to go somewhere!
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Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!)
01/02/09

@freya_kahlo: Nurture your friends. I'm amidst the pregnancy from heck, and BOY could I use somebody to mother me, as my own mother lives far away and I get tired of the only adult I see being my husband. Plus he's a boy. Not a good mom-substitute.

If one of my friends looking for someone to mother started bringing me chicken soup and trashy magazines, I would probably follow them around like a puppy I'd be so grateful.
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Alohamaid
01/02/09

@Eyebrows McGee: awwww Ill do it dear heart where do you live?
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Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!)
01/02/09

@Alohamaid: Awww, you're so sweet. :) But I'm in central Illinois, amid the corn, so probably far, far, far away. (I'm a Chicago girl by birth; I'm still not entirely adjusted to living south of I-80.)
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