When my daughter, Catherine, was little, we gave her a Barbie. This was before we realized that parents should never, under any circumstances, give their child anything that is part of a huge franchise. We expected that we, or at least Grandma and Grandpa, would be pressured to keep Barbie in the latest clothes, shoes, accessories, homes, boats, jet skis, swimming pools, airplanes and friends. These things are, after all, only the basics of what any American girl needs to survive. We didn’t know that all of these things would spawn of their own accord, along with stuffed animals and all things Pokemon, until the only way for Catherine to get to sleep at night was to have us navigate through a complex system of tunnels with a compass to find the bed.

The only thing her room didn’t spontaneously produce was a Ken doll. I don’t know why this was, but although there were other non-Barbie-style male dolls, there was no Ken. This was not something Catherine could just ignore. She never pretended that Ken was at work. No. Ken was NOT there, and she never let this fact be swept under the rug.

“OK,” she’d say, holding Barbie. “This is Mommy. Daddy’s dead.”

“Maybe Daddy’s just at work,” Dave would suggest.

She’d look at him as though this were the dumbest suggestion she’d ever heard, “No. Daddy’s dead,” she’d say with finality. “And this is Kelly and Becky and …”

The problem was that this was not just a one-time event. She had to account for Ken’s whereabouts each and every time she played, and if she had a new idea mid-play Daddy was never forgotten. “Let’s go camping! You do this, and you do that, and Daddy’s dead, so he can’t come, and …”

We didn’t have a lot of money in those days, but we were starting to get depressed, not to mention unnerved about the dead daddy. So one payday, we splurged and bought a real Ken doll for Barbie.

Catherine was overjoyed. “It’s Daddy!” She yelled. We helped her to free Ken from his box. She danced around and then took his shirt off. Ken, as we all know, is as perfectly shaped as Barbie, with muscles in all the right places. But as soon as the shirt came off, Catherine set him down with a very confused look on her face.

“Whaaaaat? What is that?” she asked, touching Ken’s perfect six-pack stomach with the tip of her finger as though she were being forced to touch a bug.

“Those are muscles,” I said.

“But … ewww, they’re on his stomach,” she said, poking Ken again.

“I guess she hasn’t seen too many of those around the house. Has she, Dave?” I snorted.

Catherine was struggling to put Ken’s shirt back on to hide the defect.

“You can stop laughing now,” Dave said, helping her.

“No, I really can’t,” I gasped.

“How long am I going to hear about this one?” he grumbled.

“Don’t worry, only the rest of your life,” I said. “But cheer up. Clearly, it’s Ken who’s abnormal. Not you.”

“Hmph,” Dave said.

To our relief, Catherine decided to overlook Ken’s strange anatomy and accepted him as one of the family. Dave was much happier the next time Catherine set up her game without killing anybody off. Because Ken’s wardrobe wasn’t nearly as fun as Barbie’s, he usually got packed off to work after all. But Barbie gave him lots of kisses when he came home, and Dave got kisses too. Happiness at home was restored. As for me, Catherine never said as much, but I choose to believe that if she ever noticed that I have a few bulges that Barbie does not, that it’s Barbie who has the problem. Not me.

Anneli Byrd is an academic adviser in Weber State University’s Student Success Center.

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