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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

To the diaper man, with love
Hamish was there for the thrills and the spills, a devoted d-man until the end.
By Carol Hall
[11/22/99]

Cult of the cloth
I thought I could quit any time, but the ladies of the Diapering Board had me in their thrall.
By Lisa Moricoli Latham
[11/22/99]

Three strikes
My parents tried and tried and tried, but neither marriage nor divorce could bring them together.
By Patt Blue
[11/19/99]

If at first ...
A marriage dies and is, after 35 years, resurrected.
By Diana O'Hehir
[11/19/99]

Gertrude and Alice
When Alice B. Toklas met Gertrude Stein, she heard bells ring. They went on to have one of the happiest marriages of the 20th century.
By Amy Benfer
[11/18/99]

Complete archives for Mothers Who Think

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Ken is nice, but stupid. The queen takes off her robe. She's an orphan girl with no home. Ken offers her some dinner -- she must be starving -- and Whitney's bed for the night. She tells him her name is Ariel, and asks, "Can I call you Dad?" Ariel finds her long-lost mother. But the children are jealous. Whitney throws a tantrum, then tries -- literally -- to kick Ariel out of the house. Ken does his ineffectual best to keep the peace.

We never wanted Barbies in our house. But they infiltrated our family as ruthlessly as ninjas, smuggled in as birthday gifts from less discerning friends. We acquired a neighing Barbie horse, then were loaned a Barbie car. (I lost my fear of Barbies on a camping trip, when it became a prime sport for my two young daughters to hurl them up a steep rock face and watch them scrape and slither down.)

Our Barbie family begins with three brunet babes, indistinguishable chorus players whose characters and names rotate. Mostly, they play the role of sisters, good or bad, to Ariel, the Little Mermaid, and the looker of the family. She has -- for the uninitiated -- bright red hair, wide sparkling blue eyes and a perky white smile. I couldn't tell you if she's the genuine Barbie or a Disney offshoot.

Then there's Michelle, a blond punk, her hair shorn off one experimental day with a pair of scissors. Whitney, the angry little sister, arrived in a purple helmet on a bicycle. Ken drifted in, I don't know when, as a hand-me-down from the older sister of a school friend.

With the arrival of Ken, a wussy Malibu type not at all like the British action men of my youth, I have been much in demand on the Barbie front. For our 4-year-old daughter Eliza, there is something indescribably attractive about a grown man playing Barbies -- and in particular, there is great attraction for me in playing Ken.

I read somewhere that a child needs just 20 minutes a day of personal parental time, on the game of his or her choice, to grow into a well-rounded American adult. I reckon I can Barbie for an hour.

True, I often groan inwardly when they bob their little heads, clutched in my daughter's hands, imploring me to join the party. The mere prospect of the game can induce a heavy urge to go to sleep, surf the Web or reach reflexively for the liquor cabinet. I will ask to play cards or a board game, anything but Bar ... then pinch myself awake, summoning my daddy conscience. This is, after all, a passing moment of childhood, one I should cherish. In years to come, utters my better self, I will long for the days when a little voice cried out for me to play Barbies.

And on occasion, a kind of magic ensues, and the little plastic faces come alive for both of us, laughing, crying, snorting in anger. They are contract players in a studio where we pull all the strings, Eliza as director and screenwriter, while I manage the talent. She sets the parameters for the play, selects a part and a premise and then calls for action.

Enter, Ken.

Next page | Here, I am defining for my daughter the relationship between man and woman