Comments on: Why’d They Have To Mess With Dora?

By: Louise

Louise — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:03:13 +0000

My middle daughter was always into Dora, but my son who is only a few months old has claimed "little Einsteins" as his love. strange how even when so small these cleverly designed programs seem to attract yet unformed minds Louises last blog post..Making your own baby food

By: Nyangi

Nyangi — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:43:21 +0000

Hola!

I discovered your blog two nights ago and have become hooked! Imagine my utter surprise when I came across this piece of news re: Dora Makeover –> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090316/ap_en_ot/dora_for_tweens

This is surprising to me because, having no children, I didn’t even know “who” Dora is (it’s only after I read your post that I realised that the shoes I bought for my adorable niece in Durban are Dora shoes!) and now I’m surrounded with Dora news.

Have a great week!

By: Lisa E.

Lisa E. — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:58:24 +0000

I heard about this a few months ago and I was dismayed. I have a 7 year old daughter. For all the reasons you listed, we enjoyed Dora in this household. I’m so tired of companies that are only thinking of the bottom line, MONEY, dictating the messages that our girls are getting during such formative years.

I have struggled to help my daughter learn the pitfalls of advertising and the hidden messages behind what the ads are saying. This is such a betrayal to me, because they COULD have given us an older Dora that is a middle school chemistry genius or something. Perhaps they will, but that silhouette doesn’t look like it to me. I will miss that poochy little belly she had, with her belly button hanging out of her shirt, saying “It’s okay to have a body that doesn’t look like Barbie!”

It’s a disappointment all the way around and as an almost-tween household, we won’t be giving Mattel one dime of our money. As someone else mentioned, I have enough on my hands trying to explain why Hannah Montana isn’t the perfect role model either. (Although I must admit it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, once I sat down and watched a few shows….I kept HM away from my dd until she was almost 7, years longer than my next door neighbor, whose three year old was enamored of her for years, and now at age 7 is focused on make-up, clothes and boys.)

By: OmegaMom

OmegaMom — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:07:53 +0000

[...] shit has hit le fan in mommyblogs. Grumps about sexualization and what-not–all of which I tend to agree with–plus a petition to Mattel and [...]

By: #1 Dinosaur

#1 Dinosaur — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:19:22 +0000

I sent this to my sister, who has a 5 year-old. Her response:

Yeah, I heard about it. I agree: smutty characters should start out smutty (like Barbie!) instead of the old bait-and-switch.

By: Julie

Julie — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:18:44 +0000

I hate hate hate that they are doing this. Since when did growing older mean a girl has to look like a slut? They claim the new Dora is geared towards the older kids but have you ever seen what happens when they have two similar products, one for younger kids and one for older kids? The younger kids want what the older kids have!

They were discussing this on the news this morning and one of the reporters mentioned that she had told her 8 year old that they were changing her look to appear to her and her response was “why?”. Tweens have outgrown her. That’s what’s supposed to happen. You don’t have the same interests at 2,3 and 4 that you have when you are 8,9 and 10.

You have your hands full making sure Z knows that real girls/women don’t dress and behave this way contrary to what the media says. I have to teach Dylan that this is not how girls behave/act/dress and he should respect them contrary to what the media says.

By: spyderkl

spyderkl — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:09:14 +0000

It’s times like this I don’t feel badly that Lena’s moved away from Dora and Diego. Nope, don’t feel bad about it at all. Even if she’s traded Dora for Hannah bloody Montana.