Barbie's pregnant pal pulled from Wal-Mart shelves
The pregnant version of Midge, which pops out a curled-up baby when her belly, attached by a magnet, is opened — has been pulled from Wal-Mart shelves across the country after complaints from customers, a company spokeswoman said yesterday.
"It was just that customers had a concern about having a pregnant doll," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Cynthia Illick said.
She said the retailer would no longer sell the "Happy Family" set, in which the pregnant Midge wears a wedding ring and comes with doll-sized crib, cradle, changing table, baby toys and a baby monitor.
Husband and 3-year-old son are sold separately.
Midge was introduced in 1963, the first of a slew of friends and family members for Barbie.
Mattel posted an article on its Barbie Web site by University of Southern California psychology professor Jo Ann Farver praising the doll as a "wonderful prop," particularly for families expecting a new sibling.
Manager Bill Boehmer of the KB Toys store in Philadelphia's Roosevelt Mall said he had heard only positive responses from customers.
"I've had people laugh, but I haven't had anyone say this was ridiculous or 'What are we trying to tell these kids?' or anything like that," Boehmer said.
But at KB Toys in downtown Philadelphia, customer reaction yesterday was uniformly negative.
"It promotes teenage pregnancy. What would an 8-year-old or 12-year-old get out of that doll baby?" asked Sabrina Fagan, 29, who has a 9-year-old son.
"Most girls want to be like Barbie" or her friends, said Kenya Williams, 29, who has two daughters, ages 9 and 7. "Maybe if they would have put them all together as a family, it might be a little different, but alone it sends out the wrong message."