Barbie Bums (and Other Weird Things Your Kids Stick in Your Face)

It doesn't happen quite as often now that my kids are closer to school age, but it's still not terribly unusual for me to be absorbed in something - reading, making dinner, folding laundry, contemplating my navel lint - and suddenly find some random object being thrust under my nose while a child demands something like, "What is this?" or "Look at this!" or perhaps just grunts wordlessly. The object could be something I've seen before, like a Matchbox car or a puzzle piece, it could be something uncommon but recognizable, like a roly-poly bug or a leaf of some kind, it could be something completely unfamiliar, like a playing piece from a game I didn't know we had or a long-lost food item that had shriveled into near-nonexistence. Or, it could be a naked Barbie bum.

My nearly-5-year-old daughter is fully in the throes of Barbie love. She has a Barbie town house. She has a Barbie boat. She has a Barbie pop-up camper. She has an extensive collection of Barbie dolls. Well, a few of them are true "Barbie" dolls. But most of them have other names. Now, if you do not happen to share a residence with a small, female child, you may not know that some Barbies are not actually "Barbies". Barbies can be Skippers or Francies or Jazzies. "How do I know," you may now be asking, "what my Barbie's real name is?" And that, my friend, is the crux of the Great Barbie Bum Problem.

Each Barbie doll comes with her name carefully written ON HER BUM. But not in large, clear, block printing that a small child can read herself. Oh, no. It is written in small, flesh tone-on-flesh tone, CURSIVE letters.

If you look closely at this photo, you will note several things. 1) The Barbies are not really naked; they are wearing flesh-toned - but patterned, because reading cursive isn't hard enough - underpants. Because modesty is important (at least from the waist down; neither doll is wearing an, ahem, upper undergarment). And 2) The name is written in frilly, loopy, feminine, cursive writing.

So it's written in cursive, what's the big deal?

Here's the big deal: 5-year-olds can't read cursive. Which means that when my daughter is playing with her Barbie dolls, she has to stop every two minutes, drop Barbie's (or in this case, Stacie's or Chelsea's) trou, and shove a bare Barbie bum into my face while asking politely, "What's her name again?"

I can only imagine that her father finds this habit even more disturbing than I do.

I guess I shouldn't complain, though. Her brother is nearly 7, and I shudder to think about the kinds of things he'll be shoving in my face soon.

Call Me Ishmael

When I was pregnant with each of our children, my husband and I spent countless hours deliberating about what we would name him or her (we opted not to find out their genders before they were born). We read books and articles on names and their meanings. We debated whether we would continue the family tradition of naming the first male child after his father (my husband is the fourth in a line of men named Herbert). We discussed whether to consider family names like John, which is popular on both sides of the family. We considered passing down the names of family members who had recently passed away, like my brother-in-law Glen or my mother Martha. We thought about whether an ethnic name like Siobhan or Padma would work with our last name. We weighed the relative merits of old-fashioned names like Charity and Prudence with contemporary names like Madison and Mackenzie. We considered what nicknames might be used for every name we considered, and debated whether to use a name like “Graham” or “Ethan” that was relatively nickname-proof. We chose my daughter’s name, Kathryn, specifically because there are many different nickname options that she can choose to go by when she gets older – Katie, Kate, Kathy, Kitten, Kat, Kit…the options are endless. Having been one of three girls named “Sandy” in many of my elementary school classes, I was rather adamant that we not choose an overly popular and overused name. (Ha! Both of my kids’ names were in the top 5 for popularity the year they were born.) We chose my son’s name, Ryan, simply because we liked its meaning (“little king”) and its sound.

Much like being at a restaurant with an overly-comprehensive menu, the final decision was probably determined by the exact moment when we had to make it, and it would have been different had the moment of truth come a bit earlier or a bit later. The proof of this is the fact that we didn’t name our daughter the girl names we had picked out for our son had he been a girl (Meredith or Brooke, in case you’re wondering), nor did we name our son the boy name we would have used for our daughter if she’d been a boy (Jack).

In short, we wanted to be absolutely certain that the name we were saddling our child with for life was one that that child – and we – would not regret. A name that gave her an identity. A name he would be proud to bear and to share. A name with meaning. A name that just felt and sounded right.

So a few days ago, I felt a bit of a pang when I called my son by his name and he told me, “Don’t call me Ryan.” But I gamely asked him what I should call him instead, and he replied, “Call me Muttonhead.” Now, I haven’t the faintest idea where he came up with that one. Possibly Oscar the Grouch used the term in passing; possibly an episode of Arthur or Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood was addressing the issue of name-calling. But wherever he heard it, apparently that word tickled his fancy and he decided he liked it better than his given name.

Let’s be honest, there are times when “Muttonhead” would actually be a very appropriate name for this child.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Nearly every child goes through a stage at some point where they want to choose a different name. At various points in my young life, I considered going by my middle name, Joyce, or choosing a different, prettier, more distinctive name like April or Cordelia (why yes, the latter thought did occur to me shortly after reading the Anne of Green Gables books). But as an adult, I finally decided that my name suits me and I don’t want to change it. (I did have one brief moment of considering a name change when I realized I shared a name with both my now-husband’s mother AND his ex-wife, but that’s another blog entry altogether.)

So at the various inevitable times in the future when my children come to me and complain about their names, I’ll try not to take it as a personal offense. And I’ll also remind them that they could have ended up named Norbert and Bertha. (No offense to anyone named Norbert or Bertha who may be reading this.) In fact, I’ll probably ask them if they prefer to be called Muttonhead. Suddenly Mom & Dad’s choice might not sound so bad, after all.

What's in a Name?

When I was pregnant with Ryan, Herb and I spent many months making lists of possible names. We debated the meanings, how each one sounded with our last name, any associations either of us had with that name, even what nicknames could be made from each one. We agreed on Ryan for a boy, but left ourselves the out that we’d make sure Ryan seemed to suit the baby before making it final. Fortunately, when Ryan was born, there was no doubt in either of our minds that he was, indeed, a Ryan.

And yet, we rarely call him by his name. I usually call him Pumpkin or Pumpkin Pie, or Little Man, or Sweetie Boy, or Buster Brown. His cousin Troy has dubbed him Ry-Guy. His father calls him Buddy or Buster or Bubba or occasionally You Big Load. My grandmother calls him Sweetheart.

I suppose it’s not surprising that we use pet names for him, especially considering that Herb and I rarely call each other by name. It’s always Sweetie or Hon or Sweetheart. My parents were the same way – I think the only time I ever heard my dad call my mom by her name was when he called for her and she didn’t hear him. Then it usually went something like this: “Hon. [pause, then a little louder] Honey? [another pause, then still louder] Mum! [brief pause, then at full volume] MAAAAAR-THAAAAAA!!!” Hee.

But I know the nickname phase will only last for so long. By the time he’s in school and able to write his own name, he’ll want it everywhere and on everything. Ryan’s room, Ryan’s books, Ryan’s pencilbox, soon giving way to Ryan’s laptop and Ryan’s cell phone. Then of course, Ryan’s car (with vanity plate “RYNSCR”), Ryan’s apartment, Ryan’s desk at work. That’s when the name we picked will become truly important – when it has a professional reputation associated with it. And that’s why we also considered how each name would look on a brass plaque on an office door, on the back of an athletic jersey, or in lights on a movie marquee. Because you never know what that name will come to mean, 30 or 40 years down the road.