Mom makes boy version of American Girl doll for her son
This story first appeared on babble.com and is reprinted with permission.
If my son asked me for a boy version of the uber-popular American Girl dolls, I'd probably hit the Internet, find my options lacking, and then shrug my shoulders and ask, "Uh, how about a Spider-Man action figure instead?"
It simply wouldn't have occurred to me that I could try jerry-rigging an "American Boy" doll out of an old American Girl doll.
As I recently learned, however, you can and people do. Among said people? New Jersey mom Ivette Martinez-Matejko, who recently posted a photo of her creation to a mom-oriented Facebook group to which we both belong.
I got in touch with her over email and she explained to me that she transformed an old American Girl doll into a male doll for her 6-year-old son because his older sister had a doll and he'd felt left out of the craze. Sure, he enjoyed (more traditionally macho) activities like sports and using tools, but he also liked playing with dolls and pretending to be a daddy.
"My daughter was looking through her (American Girl) magazine and he was looking over her shoulder," said Martinez-Matejko, a former teacher who is now a stay-at-home mom with four children. "He asked why American Girl doesn't make boy dolls. I said they just don't and he said it wasn't fair because boys like to play with dolls too."
"If they have American Girl dolls they should have American Boy dolls," her son told her.
So Martinez-Matejko set about making her son's wish a reality. She joined some Facebook groups for buying and selling American Dolls and found a doll with brown hair -- the same shade as her son's -- and one flaw: a broken eye, which made it a fairly cheap buy.
"Since I would be cutting the hair and buying clothes I did not want to spend a ton of money on the doll," she said.
She found a YouTube video to help her fix the broken eye, then stuck to her original plan of giving the doll a gender make-over: new boy clothes and a short haircut.
When she gave her son the doll, needless to say, he was thrilled. And the fellow moms in our Facebook group were impressed, too, leaving dozens of positive comments on Martinez-Matejko's post. Martinez-Matejko said she even heard from a mom who wants her help in creating her own "American Boy" doll.
The American Girl company, she said, is missing a big opportunity.
"I think there would be a huge market for boy dolls," she said.
I think so, too. Yes, action figures like Spider-Man are fun and all, but boys should get a chance to practice their nurturing skills with dolls just like girls do. And if you can tack on history lessons and motivational themes to such dolls -- American Girl dolls are known for their historical context and can-do attitudes -- even better!
A few months ago, The New York Times Motherlode blog ran a piece making a similar argument. At the time, the author, Sujatha Shenoy suggested hopefully that "American Boy" dolls might finally hit the market when her son is old enough to make them himself.
It's a nice thought, but if moms like Martinez-Matejko have proven anything, it's that if you're creative enough, you don't have to wait for the next generation to make boy dolls. Just get a used doll and adapt it to meet your needs. It's not the easiest solution, but it sure beats settling for Spider-man.
Photo courtesy Ivette Martinez-Matejko
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