My first Mattel dolls were Liddle Kiddles. Someone gave me one when I was about three and I was obsessed with them for the next two years. The first Barbie arrived on my fifth birthday, and though I can’t say Barbies were ever as fun as those first little dolls, I was a Barbie fan until high school. Baby D has that Baribe now, minus the ski outfit of which only the dress remains.
I am likely in a small minority of girls who played with her dolls until I was forced to put them away at about age 15 just to preserve what little bit of popularity I had. Bad enough to be fat, bespectacled and looking enough like a boy most days to be mistaken for one, I didn’t need anyone to know that I still played with Barbies on top of it.
Barbie was 50 years old yesterday. Just five years older than myself but still a peer because like President Obama, she is a Joneser, and we all fall happily into the valley between the boomers and the x-ers together.
Happy Birthday, Old Girl!
anniegirl1138 
Barbie continues to be a genius toy, especially since girls like to imagine themselves grown up and Barbie helps them do that
Am I the only woman on the planet who never had a Barbie? My mom thought they were awful, so she never would buy me one, which was really fine with me since I liked my baby dolls better anyway. Every one of my friends had them though. Maybe I’m just weird. 🙂
Barbie came along almost too late for me. But I think I played with them almost until I could drive. My friends never came over my house, I could get away with it. Once I could drive, I was too busy with a paper route.
Liddle Kiddles… oh, my. total past blast!
my friends and i played barbies until perhaps 5th grade (10 years old or so). we’d build villages in a friends garage, develop plot lines and use the barbies to enact morality plays, tv shows and dramas. even the guys in the neighborhood would join in…
Liddle Kiddles?! I didn’t think anyone else remembered them.
I had a few Barbies as a child, but none of them were really “Barbie” – I always seemed to get her friends, so it never felt authentic. And one of the perks to mothering a son was never having to deal with Barbie – or her friends – at all. Still, she looks pretty good for fifty!
My wife kept her childhood dolls until time destroyed them about 7 years ago. She’s a huge Barbie fan too.
Liddle Kiddles! I adored them!
My mom made me a dollhouse for them, and we sewed clothes for them. She would assemble the dresses, and I would add the rick-rack, glitter, whatever. Oh how I loved those things!
And how grateful I am that I DON’T have a daughter … when I think about today’s Barbies and the less sophisticated knock-offs, I just shudder with horror.
But what wonderful memories!
I was a hard core tomboy as a kid but I loved my Barbies. The day I decided I had outgrown them and gave them all to a girl down the street….a sad and lonely day indeed.
She’s lookin fab for 50!
I have ambiguous feelings about my daughters playing with Barbie dolls. I don’t want them to grow up thinking that happiness can be found on the business end of a credit card. But you seem to have turned out okay, so maybe I’m just being a jerk.