She's An American Girl

If you have a daughter under the age of eighteen, chances are you know what American Girl is. I have one under eighteen months and I already know about it, thanks to a crash course from my wife and my mother.
It started when Callista was born. My mom was very excited at the prospects of taking our daughter to the American Girl store and picking out a dolls. I thought “Oh, it must be a doll store,” but I’ve since learned that it is more than that.
According to my wife, American Girl started as a book series, geared towards girls which would explain why I’ve never fucking heard of them. When I was growing up, the boys read the Hardy Boy mysteries and wouldn’t be caught dead with a Nancy Drew book. The same must be true today with the American Girl reads.
It was explained that the stories are based on different girls going through some kind of turmoil at various points in history. My wife told me that her favorite was the character Samantha, a girl from the start of the twentieth century that befriends a poor, servant girl and learns how true friendship is greater than any amount of money.
She explained that she was enamored by the series and read the majority of the books…some of them more than once…stopping around the age that most girls grow out of the series.
Someone then had the genius to start making dolls of the characters, and that’s where my daughter becomes involved. My wife claims to not knowing of the doll division, and judging from the price of them, she probably wouldn’t have gotten one anyway. Prices of the dolls are around $90, which makes it an item that is pretty exclusive to well-to-do girls.
At American Girl Place in Chicago, you have three floors of dolls to choose from. But the walls are not filled with just the dolls. In addition to them, you can outfit your doll with a variety of fashions that are priced around $25. You can also accessorize them with pets, wheelchairs, pianos, houses, just about anything you can imagine. If that’s not enough, you can actually purchase the same clothes for yourself as your doll. My father told me he saw a pair of Asian girls there once dressed exactly like the doll they were carrying.
The store also sports a hair salon where you can have a professional hair stylist that can give you and your baby a hair makeover, thereby giving the real and toy girl the same hair style.
Afterwards, you and your baby can make reservations at the café and have a tea party.
While walking through the store, I was amazed at the level of exploitation involved here and had to ask my wife why girls would be so attached to such a product. She explained that it encompasses a girls primary desire to be a mother herself, to dress and take care of her “baby” as a way to prepare herself for the real thing. It also, I assume, helps prepare them for the inevitable desire to shop like any other good girl.
I must have missed the three other movies that American Girl has marketed, but I was very aware that a new American Girl movie involving the “Kit” character is in theatres now.
My mother who visited the store a few weeks ago, went in with the intention of browsing. She left with a “Bitty Baby,” a baby doll that American Girl markets for younger girls not ready for the “responsibility” of a true pre-teen A.G. doll. Understand that my girl is still shitting herself, so I’m not sure why any baby or doll…other than a stuffed one that she can chew and slobber on…is something that she needs to have already. Nonetheless, moms was caught up in the moment and got Calli a Bitty Baby that’s scheduled for Christmas delivery.
The same phenomenon was happening to my wife while we were there. She was overcome with the idea and vowed that my mom wouldn’t be the only one taking Callista to American Girl Place as she wanted to be part of the experience too. I actually had to discourage her from looking for Bitty Baby accessories that would compliment the one that my mother already purchased.
But the best thing about the American Girl Place is watching the men…Dads and husbands who were seemingly dragged into the store at the mercy of their wives or daughters and looking miserable on each one of the store’s three levels. There was the glaze in their eyes, this empty look, as they obiediently followed their female leaders, occasionally pausing to find a seat for their aching feat.
My advise is to try and sire a son, because I plan on taking Ethan to a Cubs game while the girls navigate their make believe world of American girls.
The above shot, in case you’re wondering, is of Julie Albright, an American Girl from the 70’s who overcomes the adversity of her parent’s divorce and getting ripped off by a scalper who peddles off some overpriced seats to go see the Bay City Rollers.