My parents had moved into a new house and I was helping them unpack and settle in during my stay with them. It had just been over a week when I was resting in my room and my mother brought something covered in bubble wrap. She put it down on my bed as I looked at her with curious eyes and then went back to doing whatever she was up to. I picked it up, very happy to have bubble wrap to play with, and then unwrapped to see what was inside it.
“Oh my god! These are my two favourite barbies!” I almost screamed but internally.
I thought my toys had already been donated to the children back at my village, so this was a surpise indeed. I inspected the two barbies, still preserved in their pristine plastic form. One of them was my first ever barbie that I received even before I turned five. Firsts always have a special corner in my heart. I noticed that she had flat feet and it immediately reminded me of the “weird” barbie from the recent Barbie movie. I smiled to myself recalling how offended I felt about that in the movie, now that feeling made complete sense. The second barbie was the traditional model in its most gorgeous production, pretty much like the main character from the movie. It made me smile even wider realising how these two were my favourites even as a child.
My first associated memory with a barbie doll is of feeling happy and comforted. Each one of them was given a name and treated like they were real and living and felt things. I loved living in my fictitious world almost as if it were real. All my toys also contributed in building this imaginary world that I could enter at any moment.
I wasn’t very fond of the real world around me back in 2005 for reasons pertaining to bullying, r*pe culture and crime factors. Of course I did not know these words at the time, but I knew how they felt in my surroundings. They translated into warnings given to little girls by teachers, parents and other concerned adults. I still am not fond of the current real world for the same reasons (as even evidenced through the Epstein Files now), except I am grown up and I am the adult and I do not wish to be like most of the adults from my childhood— the ones who do not hold adults accountable and instead control children or people with less power because it is the easy way to solve a problem.
As sad as it sounds, it feels worse to admit it, but please keep the pity at bay and invite anger to the forefront instead.
My childhood had its fair share of tragic events. My parents did their best even under difficult circumstances while living through their own emotional turbulences as I imagine it. That was more than two decades ago. We have gone through ups and downs and still continue to do so, we have been learning and growing together as a family unit. I will even say that we have done really well to be honest— personal and ancestral histories all considered.
But I still wonder, “done really well” by whose definition? in what relativity? The moment I try to answer these questions, the world feels very wrong to me, like it needs correction.
When I found my barbies while house-shifting and helping my parents unpack, I started thinking about my relationship with toys. Going far back into the memory lane, I did not realise how much I found solace in myself and my room full of toys— till I found storybooks of course. Later on, I always had my head down in a novel. I felt comforted knowing that I could survive through my imagination, that my dolls and stuffed toys were attentively listening to me. All I needed was the feeling of comfort, of being seen and heard. My toys were doing a really great job at that. Of course my parents and teachers kept an eye on me, but they never found out about my relationship with my toys because as a little girl I was afraid I would lose the time and space where I found safety. This was where I had agency as a child. In my play, I re-enacted the world around me with all the power structures and stereotypes intact. This is what children do— they learn from observing their environment, even the things you think they do not understand.
It made me reflect on so many things from my past. The little girl that I was— in a deeply gendered society— oblivious to the system. The privilege I have had to unlearn and relearn stereotypes through my higher education. Primary and secondary education are still far behind in challenging many societal stereotypes that adult education makes relatively easy to question (that is only if you are in an institution that encourages critical thought and expression). In fact, it is not just about education, it is about the environment that extends beyond learning, and what the child is exposed to, in everyday life.
Simultaneously, I also realised that all this coexists with the experience that everything is not about gender or fighting barbies or the colour pink or rationalising difference. Understanding a person and their behaviour can never be reduced to a single factor. Because human nature is beyond stereotypes, nothing in this world is black and white and complexities are not always captured by theory and research. Some things are better understood through lived experiences, especially in complex / comorbid / intersectional environments invloving emotional nuance.
To me, playing with toys meant finding companionship and imaginary friends and creating my own world when I learnt that kids could be more cruel and adults would remain ignorant about it. And then, reading books and bonding with characters in my imaginary world felt easier than making sense of friendships in the real world. I was rather happy to be in my shell especially after figuring out that I had a very vivid and visual imagination. Staying in my own imaginary world wasn’t a problem, it was an easy response to my environment and the people around me. Don’t get me wrong— they were all lovely people and wanted the best for me. But they were also slaves to the same patriarchal society in which I was born. I was still a developing child, so the best I could do for myself was probably retreat within. Barbie was my friend back then— also a piece bought to befriend me, especially from the patriarchal market. We quickly became friends given the common grounds of sharing a patriarchal upringing— one human little girl and one plastic adult woman, both lacking agency. By the onset of adolescence, I had outgrown my barbie phase and eventually found genuine friendships. Barbie became a nostalgic topic of conversation among girls and sometimes a way of teasing girls. I had forgotten all about my barbies until I saw them again recently.
The gift of unpacking keeps giving so much. Being given an opportunity to revisit the past with a new lens. To see things with newfound knowledge and comprehend them to make new meaning is what healing really is, I suppose.
I recalled how there was a phase when I kept barbies in my room, very decoratively by the way. Looking back, I felt like I was practicing the role of a typical man in a patriarchy. I wonder if that is the reason why women find forgiveness for men much easily? Because, as children, our play was also patriarchal and kind of enacted bad behaviour, upholding patriarchy that mishandles control and agency. Maybe it is a subconscious part that triggers our empathy? I wonder if I was more forgiving towards bad behaviour earlier— when I hadn’t developed a solid relationship with my inner child— because I felt subconscious guilt from my childhood?
It feels very important that we take the power of play seriously. Children will always be children. It is the adults around them who need to empower themselves with awareness about the smallest of things.
This is the reason I write so much about themes of home, identity and safety— wishing for the world to do better and become better. I experienced the world as an unsafe place more often than I found safety in it. I know it wasn’t my fault. The world— especially the “society”— failed me. It became very personal to me. I went to great lengths to speak to my inner child and help her release the anger and resentment she held. We buried our blame together as we got to know each other better in the last decade. Now, I also notice how I don’t forgive bad behaviour easily anymore. There are still some things that we are slowly leaving behind through the help of community work. It is this relationship with myself that drives me to push for social transformation— especially in relation to the environment in which children learn and grow.
When we are ready to share, I hope our stories can ease pain that comes from not being seen or heard or acknowledged. Maybe my voice could find someone who doesn’t wish to be found because they are also not very fond of the real world for whatever reasons of their own. I wish to tell them that we can make tiny safe spaces together in this vast world. A space where your inner child can breathe and relax. We can always find a corner to just be in each other’s company.
Let us build communities and heal the world. Children don’t have to continue to experience a childhood where adults around them are afraid to take responsibility or fear holding other adults accountable. A world where children can come out to play in safety and we can ensure that it remains safe.
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