This Woman Has Made Barbie Sets That Include Essential Workers And Bread Baking Dolls And We Love It

If there’s one universal experience for children around the world, it’s  playing with Barbie dolls. Whether you played with the dolls yourself or rolled your eyes at a sibling’s obsession, they were involved in most kids’ lives in one way or another. But Barbie’s light skin, blue eyes, blonde hair, and hourglass figure weren’t quite as universal as her presence itself. In the initial days, brown and black kids would look at Barbie and find nothing they could relate to. And because we couldn’t see ourselves in her, she became an unrealistic and misplaced beauty standard. The same rings true for children with disabilities, who never saw themselves represented in Barbie’s perfect plastic world. However, as times changed, Barbie evolved to include different skin tones, a doll in a wheelchair, and ones with prosthetic limbs, no hair, and vitiligo.

We’ve also seen Barbie take on so many different professions. But this woman has taken inclusive and diverse Barbies a step further. The 56-year-old from California, who goes by the name ‘Grandma Gets Real’ on Instagram, has created beautiful ‘Quarantine Barbie’ sets that fit into different roles undertaken during the pandemic. These include sanitation workers, medics, and grocery store owners, who are all essential workers. Additionally, there are also sets that have Barbie trying out some of our favourite quarantine activities – binge watching movies, baking, attending Zoom calls, and gardening among others. If these dolls aren’t the perfect representation of us during lockdown, I don’t know what is.

Take a look at some of these creative Barbie sets she’s made:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBTD9MkJy52/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAsP7hzJe3m/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_kmN-apH-9/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_feuKCp1PS/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_XdMXqpwpv/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_N80qZpZJe/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Even after lockdowns around the world have been eased and we can go out and meet people again, the aftershocks of the pandemic are going to stay with us for a while. We need to continue to remember the contributions of our essential workers even after life goes back to normal. And what better way to teach young children to be grateful to them than through a doll? Besides, the quarantined Barbies will live on to tell the next generations just how bored their parents and grandparents were. This woman’s creativity is incredible! It’s stuff like this that keeps us positive even during the darkest of times.

https://thehauterfly.com/lifestyle/a-letter-to-my-curly-hair-a-tale-of-love-hate-and-straightening-irons/