CUT THE CRAP
RAISE THE CAP

Fixed! Easy.

My 3 yo granddaughter loves her Barbies. While watching Barbie videos on YouTube last summer, we came across some that show Barbies being pregnant and having babies. My girl was already amazed whenever she saw a real pregnant person out shopping or on the street. She was amazed at the idea of a mama having 'a baby in her belly.' She can't get over the idea. And of course kept asking how the baby got there. "How did she eat the baby?"

So now we have to watch all the videos about "Barbie having a baby". She's been obsessed with it for months. Now she's stuffing little toys under her Barbies' dresses to play that they're having babies. Last week, she added a new element to the game: she puts a small stuffed animal under her own shirt and walks around pretending she's in labor, moaning and breathing hard. It's bizarre. And she does it constantly.

Her dad and I have talked about how this all started. She was still 2 yo last summer when these videos started showing up. We're wondering if this is some propaganda ploy to condition little girls to see pregnancy as cool and stylish. After all, Barbie is doing it and looking glamorous. I keep thinking she'll get bored with the 'game' and move on to something else. But she gets deeper into it. She looks positively beatific when she's got a stuffy under her shirt and her arms are wrapped around it. Her older sister (8) and brother (12) keep laughing at her and telling her she looks ridiculous. And she understands that, so she doesn't play it at home, only at my house. The other grandma hates it.

But my concern is that she's being propagandized. She gets very upset when I try to change the game. Anyone have thoughts?

Many years ago, as a preschool teacher, it wasn't uncommon for the 2 and 3 year old girls at the daycare to be fascinated with women who were pregnant, especially if the woman was their own mother, aunt or family friend. They would do the same thing your grandaughter is doing. One little girl would pretend to breastfeed her baby, just like mama.
By the time they were four, most of them seemed to lose interest. Your granddaughter may become less obsessed as she gets older.
Haven't seen the Barbie is pregnant videos.
All we can do as caring adults is to gently support our grandchildren, and let them know there are other things they can do in addition to, or besides, being a mom.

I've raised children and nannied some, and have never seen this behavior. I have always been supportive of wherever their imaginations take them. No judgement. I expect she'll eventually lose interest. But it is pretty weird when she pretends to be in labor and hugs her belly so lovingly. Her older sibs probably told her about watching their mom get bigger and bigger with her inside. I believe she's working through how strange it is to think of being inside her mom's body. I'll stop worrying, and just tell her it's great her dolls are having babies of their own. Thanks so much for responding.

And I remember having my Barbie walking around knocked up all the time. We had a local girl who heard way too many inappropriate things at home and would promptly share them so Barbie was "knocked up" with several other children and we'd pretend she was smoking, drinking and yelling at the kids to go outside. She once told us about how her older sister who was pregnant "peed herself" and started screaming about the baby coming. We in turn poured water on Barbie and did the same.
It was the Seventies.

In other words, kids are strange and fascinated with the oddest things. The bigger the reaction the more likely they'll want to do it. In this case look around for a good storybook about having a baby, read it and be open for questions at any time.

I've always encouraged the kids in my life to explore their imaginations. Her two older sibs laugh at her obsession with Barbies having babies, so my house is the only place she feels comfortable playing the game. I have her two days a week. The other grandma makes it clear she's uncomfortable with it. She has the little one 3 days/week. I expect she'll get bored with it before too long. Thanks for sharing your experience. I really appreciate it. I've taken care of kids, including my own, and this is a new one on me.

I don't think you're going to get anywhere trying to convince a 3 year old not be obsessed with the things she's obsessed with. You're going to have a lot more luck "yes, anding..." her instead of "no, look over hereing".

The problem isn't that she thinks being pregnant is cool and stylish. It's your concern that she's hearing messaging that tells her that that's all that woman can aspire to in life. So make sure she hears lots of different messaging and sees examples of it and believes it.

Jacinda Ardern just wrote a kids' book about what it's like to have an important job and also be a mom: https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/04-10-2025/jacinda-arderns-new-kids-book-reviewed

Maybe see if you find more examples like that. Kids (and adults) can be obsessed with more than one thing at a time. Just because she's obsessed with pregnancy as a 3 year old doesn't mean she's destined to be in an abusive tradwife relationship. Maybe she's destined to be an OBGYN or an amazing kindergarten teacher or a child psychologist. Or maybe she'll combine having a big family with other major career goals. Maybe she'll be a great stay at home mom and that will make her supremely happy with her life. Or maybe she'll just get over it and move on to something completely different.

I'm the least maternal person on the planet but I went through a phase of shoving pillows down my shirt and imagining I had 16 kids. I didn't want 16 kids - I just wanted a big close family and I eventually figured out there's lots of different ways to achieve that that don't involve diapers, screaming and sleep deprivation. Watching Supernanny in my teens did the trick. So you have lots of time

But I think you should maybe examine your own assumptions that her interest in nurturing and pregnancy must be a negative thing. Kids that age are starting to understand sex and gender at the beginning of a long path to who they will eventually be and, unfortunately, you don't get to control how that turns out, no matter how you try. But the good news is, neither does anyone else completely.

As soon as I started speaking I refused to wear dresses or have anything to do with anything pink or female coded. One of my earliest childhood memories is the bitter disappointment I felt when a distant aunt gave me a set of toy cleaning supplies (brushes, mops, etc.) for Christmas. Surprise, surprise, I grew up to be trans man. There were no subliminal messages or gender-coded toys or social programming that were ever going to turn me into anything else.

I think the important thing is to teach kids to be open and honest with themselves and to give them tools to express who they are, not to try to steer them towards who you think they should be, no matter how well meaning you might be and then accept and love what you get because (for the most part) it's all good.

Covers these topics far better than I could:
https://www.populationbalance.org/

It’s from what’s called an ecofeminist perspective, but its more sensible than the stuff Ezra Klein etc. are shilling imo.

This is pretty much the best piece I have seen so far on the topic-again it’s an environmentalist perspective, but environmentalists are society’s friends not the enemy whatever economists say. That too economists driving us all into hellscapes with unchecked, deregulated growth (most of which goes into the pockets of billionaires who are trying to destroy social security anyway).
And any immigration Cato/the Koch brothers/ etc approve of would be as heartless as Trumpism. I know from bitter experience how those types of corporatists see all humans.

Immigration should not be a weapon used to force things on people calculating that you can get away with ott stuff with a foreigner.
Aside from everything else, that’s outright inaccurate and insulting. The global south is not a source of timid handmaids eager to participate in rubbishy ai and other social experiments.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/there-are-many-threats-to-humanity.-a-low-birth-rate-isnt-one-of-them

It's a vitally important perspective to counter the Republican Taliban in America.