Show Mom what were the Mary Kane Special to The Washington Post Im I'm not much of a history buff but my year old daughter is For the past few years weve we've spent bedtime following the travails of Mary and Laura Ingalls as they settled the open prairie in the Little House series Then Annabeth turned to the American Girl books She readily devoured this fictional series from Irish servant girl Nellies Nellie's escape from the city orphanage in the early to era Depression-era Kit spotting her father fathe at the soup kitchen So when Annabeth raced from the front door recently with an American Girl catalog and begged me meto meto meto to look at the latest doll I prepared to give it a quick glance She pointed w with th excitement to American Girl Julie circa 1974 That's right a historical doll younger than me 1 t Annabeth quickly put put I this into context So youre you're younger than the 1944 doll but older than the Julie doll right Mom Yes Well Lets Let's move on Julie lives in San in-San San Francisco sports bellbottoms a purple crocheted hat and a far out room with cascading beads Like all the American Girls she's supposed to tobe tobe tobe be an archetype of her generation While pioneer Kirsten dealt with witha a fire that left her Swedish immigrant family homeless Julie faces the trials of the Her parents get divorced and she fights to play sports with boys post- post Title IX The American Girl creators acknowledging the relatively recent history of their latest doll say they hope she sparks remembrances that moms can share with their daughters I guess I could point out to Annabeth that Julies Julie's problems while real pale a a bit in comparison to working in ina a sweatshop having no food or losing your your home I could note further that Julie was born at the tail end of the boom baby-boom generation a privileged cohort that wielded undue cultural influence and spent much of the doing things you dont don't necessarily want to share with children I cant can't imagine the American Girl folks expected moms to snuggle next to their daughters and detail the changes wrought by the sexual revolution or explain what all those people were up to in San Francisco's Haight- Haight Ashbury district But what to say exactly Heres Here's what I remember a heated argument at our dinner table the day my 16 year-old year brother slapped a George McGovern sticker on our Ford Pinto the one with the red white and blue trim My friend Gayles Gayle's house where a picture of her brother Fred in a military y V uniform hung on the wall Freds Fred's room was empty Gayles Gayle's mother never mentioned him and I knew by the way her father sat in ina a corner comer chair buried in the newspaper that I was not to ask President Richard M. M Nixon delivering a speech on television one summer day with my brother patting the set and saying Its about time buddy Given that the dolls are supposed to be 9 years old and that girls who are much younger covet them I questioned at first the wisdom of marketing young Julie Then I realized the American Girl people might be on to something Maybe the closer history gets the more we distance ourselves from it Insulated by the years gone by girls can enjoy learning about the hardships of pioneer life and the disgrace of child labor But they they and and their moms may not be ready to ruminate on events too freshly recalled Its It's I easier to give our history a makeover dress it up and dance around its edges and then share the results What more fitting a time period for this exercise than the I sported a Secretariat poster on my wall back then I had my hair cut into a Dorothy Hamill wedge a a particularly disastrous move I wore gauchos Only Dan Fogelberg could understand me Yes Julie has a furry shaped foot-shaped rug in her room and a Brady Bunch poster But theres there's more to her story according to the j American Girl folks Julie eventually learns to handle s change and to become more hopeful about her family's future Well then hats off to Julie Maybe she ends up with the kind of r memories she can pass along even if our i own histories tell us that's not always so easily done |