I was a kid in the 70’s which were a lousy time to be a kid. The whole world was focused, as usual, on the Baby Boomers who were young adults and us “Gen X”ers had neither the benefit of being the Young Masters of the Universe nor their Entitled Spawn. We were the disaster generation. You know, we rode bikes without helmets, in cars without seatbelts let alone car seats…hell, even in the back of the open pick up truck- that was a treat. Our parents cheerfully bought us McDonalds, but only every once in awhile, we drank Coke and got cavities, the poor or unlucky ate glue and lead paint. The bus picked us up a good little walk from the house on a dangerous road. Boomer parents learned from our childhood tragedies. If we were lucky, we just learned “don’t do that again”....

We didn’t have much to look forward to. The world was full of pollution, the president was a crook, and even then rumors were circulating that it was going to be up to us to fix social security – a daunting task seeing as how we were being badly confused by New Math and therefore unsure we were ever going to get out of the third grade. But, what with the cold war and all, chances were we wouldn’t have to worry about it. Almost everybody I knew was convinced that some idiot was going to push the button leading to global thermonuclear war and the best thing we could hope for was that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would beat the special effects of even Star Wars.

So being a kid was not cool. It was “childish” to be a child. Toys were sort of crappy anyway. Badly put together, garish plastic, made in China with poor attention to detail and astonishingly expensive on account of inflation. Remember inflation? It could be making a come back. Even Saturday morning cartoons were dreary with none of the clever details that characterized the Warner Brothers Classics or The Flintstones. Most were hastily sketched by people who had done too much cocaine and featured characters doing something against a flat, repetitive background. No wonder most of us bought classic comic books, imported anamie and invented the graphic novel as soon as we had a little money of our own. Hell, the best thing on was Scooby Doo, and even those kids were teenagers. And not terribly bright ones. You’d think that after encountering a hologram 15 million times they’d learn what one looked like. But at least Scooby was reliably funny and the music was oddly comforting.

Thus I felt it prudent to control my little girl passion for things little girls are supposed to be passionate about: dolls, costumes, dress up clothes. Some of my friends had beautiful dolls, but I would never ask for one. And lets face it, it wasn’t all cultural. I was then as I am now: contrary by nature.

“You should get it out of your system now” my mother advised me. You can’t really fool your mom, you know. “You’d better be careful or you’re going to turn into one of those 30 year old women with a huge doll collection”

It turns out she had a point. Although actually I seem to be turning into something worse: a 40 year old woman developing an interest in collectible Fisher Price toys.