Mother of two sons, Betty Strachan has spent the last few years repainting dolls faces to make them look more realistic and more mum-like.
Some of her re-designed Barbie’s have bags under their eyes, scrapped back buns, dark roots, glasses and even freckles. Yup, sounds about right!
But now the Australian native has taken her passion one step further. She has created a breastfeeding doll which she hopes can help educate young people and remove any stigma attached to nursing your own baby.
She told the Huffington Post:
”I’m a member of a mothers’ group that’s comprised of very lovely and supportive women. I remember one day, I was drawing the new face on a Barbie doll, and she just seemed to be the embodiment of the entire group. So I mimicked the positioning of a latched baby with an old figurine I had and called her the ‘Mamas Worldwide Barbie.’”
Her figurines did so well that she has set up a shop on Etsy selling the dolls with little latched on babies.
“Everyone in my mother’s group thought it was great, so I posted her on my Instagram page. After that, I received a few requests to make more, and I realized that it was really something that should be available ― because, like most things that society deems unacceptable, educating children is the way to erase the stigma behind it.”
Betty hopes her dolls will help to erase the stigma that sometimes still surrounds nursing babies. She also makes pregnant dolls, tired Dad dolls and same-sex parent dolls.
You can check out some of her work here
(Feature image via Instagram Allthelittledolls)
