A year or three ago, my parents came home and presented me with a special little lady: Tenney Grant. She cost $1 and was wearing a hoodie that said "reggae" on the back and had a marijuana leaf. Why a child had a doll with that hoodie is beside the point. Her hair was the point. I do not understand how doll hair gets to that point. I put her in The Bin with the rest of my dolls.
On June 28th, I forced myself to deal with her. I forgot multiple things. One: how much hair dolls lose when you brush through it, hair that will not be growing back. Two: how long it takes to do a doll's hair. Three: how common this is. I'm not trying to get on my high horse here, but to get on my high horse:
Parents get their kids the wrong dolls. They're too expensive to just be grabbing one just for funsies.
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| The little lady before her fixing. |
I started talking with other people about it, posing the question: What are the best and worst first dolls for parents' to get their kids? The most universal answer for best first doll was Kit. For worst, was Kanani. I don't disagree with either of these. I think a lot of parents get dolls for their kids based on what hair would be the most fun to do, and yeah the most fun is a doll with nice long hair like Tenney or Kanani or Julie. This works great for kids who really want to do hair and have the patience for learning to braid and do other maintenance that prevents the hair from matting from play. A lot of kids just don't have that interest or patience, and that's fine! I think Kit is such a good doll for those kids, she matches their personalities to a T. She's got a bit of a rebellious streak, she's resourceful, and a lot of the rough secondhand listings I see on Ebay are signs of kids similar to Kit. If your kid cuts their own hair, chances are they'll cut the doll's hair. Get a doll with short hair, get a Kit doll, anything other than Nanea or Maryellen, I beg of you. It's so fixable, I promise.
Please give me some secondhand horror stories in the comments, I would love to hear your stories because I know there is much worse than the Tenney I got.
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| Tenney after an hour and a half of work. |
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