I am 50+ and I had one of the first Barbies on the market.  However, I never thought I would look like a Barbie and I never thought she was slutty.  She was a high fashion girl.  We loved them and they did NO shape our idea of what we should be or become.  I think Barbies have changed since I was a kid.  I think the media have turned her into a marketing maniac to attract kids attention.  That is realy too bad.  I do want to say that my Barbie secretly slept with Ken and even got PG by him with a little help from clay.  She had a baby out of wedlock too.  Although I think I married them...

The Bratz dolls creep me right out.  I refuse to have one in my home and I am hoping against all hope and reason that they go away by the time Jillian is big enough to get one as a gift or, worse - to want one.

I don't think Barbie gave me any kind of body-image complex or made me feel inferior in any way.  In fact, I think maybe having Barbies fed my God-complex and that's why I love my Sims so much now.  I could make Barbie do damn near anything I wanted, and THAT is power.

The Bratz dolls just make me afraid that they're going to come to life one night and run around the house on their stumpy non-footed legs and spell things wrong.

Our child life specialist (she assists kids cope with hospital stuff through play and distraction) REFUSES to give out Bratz dolls as prizes to our patients.  She decided that after she realized that Bratz dolls have thong underwear.  At least Barbie's were molded plastic granny-panties!

If somebody gave a Bratz doll to my daughter, I'd send it to rehab.

My daughter had one or two when they first came out. She never was obsessed with them and in fact, hardly ever played with them. I don't even know where they are right now (the bottom of a landfill? Perhaps...)

I wonder about the thrill of the forbidden, though...would a kid who was categorically denied a Bratz doll end up coveting them MORE, or is indulging in them a good way to ensure they will be thrown under the bed and forgotten?

Eh.  Bratz Schmatz.  We have them and my three-year-old loves to play with them, but only because my stepdaughters loved them when they were 10-12-- and I would've been a total ogress to tell them at that age that they couldn't play with a Bratz doll because they might, you know, want to LOOK like one.  Please.

Now my girls are 13 and 16- We watch the Pussycat Dolls reality show and the Coyote Ugly reality show together sometimes- and talk about what skanks those girls are and how we would NEVER wear that outfit and that makeup and that hairstyle.  And those girls look just like Bratz dolls.  So I think that assuming your child will want to look like a Bratz doll because she plays with one is ridiculous.  I had dozens of Barbies growing up- It never occured to me to try to LOOK like a Barbie.  That would've been weird.

The critical mistake, I think, is happening when moms let their daughters dress like skanks for a dance recital or a modeling class at a Club LibbyLu.  Put the makeup and the gogo outfit on her and that's when the gears will start turning in her little brain.

Larry Birkhead pimps his daughter. Barbie has her own car. A real car. And Alec Baldwin ... well, do

I'm happy to talk about sex with my kids. Masturbation, penises, vaginas, why Bratz dolls are sluts .

It seems to me that the major marketers might be missing something. Yes, they are hell-bent on age-compression, but I'm sensing a change in consumer attitudes. What follows are a list of blog posts, web sites, and reports that indicate...