Two little girls sat in a puddle of sunshine, playing with their dolls. Their dolls liked to dress up and go to balls and find handsome princes…
…and then I blinked and those two little girls became bigger girls, who hardly fit in that little puddle of sunshine on the living room floor. And their dolls – still dressed up in frilly little dresses – were doctors and teachers and scientists; knitters, readers and adventurers. They went mountain climbing and broke legs and wore casts made from scraps of fabric, they used telescopes made from empty paper towel tubes scavenged from the recycling bin to discover the mystery behind dark matter.
And I realized that my big girls had not outgrown doll play, not exactly, but they had outgrown the pretend tea parties and balls, and they needed doll clothes and accessories to support their new kinds of play. In a world where everyone is trying to convince girls to try S.T.E.M careers, it seems as though this might be an easy thing to find, but it turned out it wasn’t.
I’m filling that niche for my proudly nerdy girls, and I hope that some of my creations can spark a new level of doll play for other nerdy girls out there.