The 7 worst sexy toys for children

Shocker: tarted-up toys are slaggy. Apparently a bunch of American scientists –after a lot of study – has determined that dolls that wear fishnet tights and trowels of slap don’t promote healthy childhood innocence. (Read the article)

So if the American Psychological Association can do it, with a stroll round the Internet we can too.

The 7 worst "sexy" toys for children

1. The Peekaboo dance pole – The Daily Mail reports that parents were up in arms at the idea that their little ones would be up in legs using this pole-dancing kit. Apparently gyrating around a phallic symbol to get in shape is the kind of wholesome fun that’s reserved for adults.

2. Sexy thongs for girls – ewww. Just ewww. Or as my daughter says, “My bottom is eating my pants.”

3. Playboy eraser sets
It’s obscene that Playboy markets bright pink eraser sets to the younger set. Girls shouldn’t have school supplies emblazoned with the logo of the OAP in a smoking jacket. They should get kitted out with the latest raunch culture brands. Where are the Nuts lunchboxes? Where are the Stringfellows ring binders?  Read the news story and listen to what some mummies and kids think about it on Radio 4's Women's Hour

4. Bratz funky diamond torso – I used to have a Barbie styling head when I was young: you could brush it, braid it, put it up in rollers. With this one kids paint on glitter gel, gloss her Jolie lips and paint her nails. Jewellery is also included.

5. Polly Pocket So Hip Cruise – Because what could be more fun to a child than playing shuffleboard, taking ballroom dancing classes or enjoying the all-you-can-eat shellfish buffet? In Polly Pocket’s world, the dolls ride down the superslide, relax in the hot tub (Please just 5 more minutes, mum!) and if all else fails, go shopping. Follow that up with the ultra-salubrious Pollywood Limo Scene.

6. Barbie hot tub party bus - Again with the hot tubs. What’s next: the Barbie Keg Party?

7. My scene bling bikini spa
This spa is “totally rockin”. “Just fill it up with water and watch as the included doll, Delancey, hangs out at the coolest spa in town.” Watching a doll hang out – now that’s fun!

Do you know of any? Post them here or email links and pictures to alphamummy@timesonline.co.uk.

Comments

[Coco1923]

There is only one thing parents can do do ,not buy .This generation will have to deal with the marketing tricks . Parents have to educate their children that is our responsibility .If goods wont be bought they are not sellable therefore no one will make them . So who is buying them ?

[Kristi]

Thank you!! That was very touching! I really needed that help!Alpha Mummy,do you have a book?If email me at Krisbart1973@gmail.com!& where could I find it!

[James Addison]

What about the entire Bratz line? The entire product is built on minature prostitutes.It is a good product.Thanks for that post.
http://www.adultoysuk.co.uk/

[Vibrators]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

[Franziska]

"Barbies' bodies place unrealistic expectations on children"? Quack. I grew up with barbie and so did all my friends and we all turned out pretty well! Some kids prefer barbie, some prefer bratz, I find it more telling that some mothers have problems giving their children barbies to play with.

[Jen]

Sadie: I don't think it can be a generational thing, just an attitudinal one. I'm twenty years old, have multiple piercings (not all of which you can see when I'm dressed) and consider myself liberally-minded in just about any debate, but the increasing sexualisation of increasingly young children and girls in particular is something I find genuinely worrying. I think I was probably amongst the last few years of children who were, by and large, really children; I didn't give a damn about who was looking at me and in what way, I was more concerned with building a treehouse, wondering where the newest bruise on my shin had some from or thinking up ways to get ten pence from my mother to buy a little paper bag of sweets. I count myself very lucky for it, because I'll always have a memory of genuine and happy innocence, which I think is important. Sex is a good thing; assuming, of course, consent all round, it's natural and healthy and we should never teach children to be ashamed about sex or about themselves. However we should be ashamed of inflicting adult sexual values onto children to whom they don't naturally occur. A child is likely, I think, to become naturally aware of its own sexual nature in a serious way around puberty; I agree that they need to be taught the mechanics of sex and puberty and so on beforehand. But why can't we let them have their freedom from adult values which are irrelevant to their bodies before then?

[Catherine]

I actually prefer Bratz to Barbies because they come in far more multi cultural types than Aryan Barbie. Bratz have shown many children that beauty doesn't just come in the blonde and blue eyed form.

Barbies' bodies place unrealistic expectations on children. Bratz bodies' are made in a way that refers to their own 'dollness' - head similar size to the body etc.

The idea of selling poles to children is horrible.

[sid281]

Whats wrong with a Barbie hot tub party bus?

[Stacy*]

Mum showed me this, i was intregued ...

I'm only just what would be deemed a young adult, 16. I had my ears pierced at 11 and then had my first pair of heels brought for me for a work in year 10. In the past ten years girls (esp. 'tomboys')have gone from climbing trees in dungarees and coming home with scuffed knees and a carrier bag full of conkers to worrying about what they should do with that one stray hair and the fact that the pretty girl had her hair dyed last week.

I took textiles and so, at AS level you design a product for a child. I used my friends daughter who has just turned 8. After going to her house for a final fittig her Mum pipes up, 'Bai what bra do you want'. Fair enough it was crop-top style but still in a bra shape ... i was shocked, at eight i was too bothered about the huge scrape on my knee and the fact that i'd fallen off my bike and bust my lip.

Im so grateful that i was brought up by my mum to appreciate the real things a child should do plastic lipstic and blue eyeshadow with the nailvarnish that peeled off. Now you can go into superdrug or boots and find ranges especially for younger kids. I dare say i wear makeup but there a ten year gap between 16 and 6 is there not.

I suppose the long and short of it is dont let your little girl forget how it feels to much about and have a giggle and stop her worrying about the fact that she isnt skinny enough this world has become far too obssed with the percieved look of perfect and its not just teens who are affected because believe it or not so are most younger children

Theres my view ... Personal ... NoOffence.

[bainbridge island florist]

oh my gosh, it's insane that they actually have thongs for little girls. that is just mind blowing.

[memole]

oh well, I've a little story to tell. Once I was waiting for a changing room in a lingerie store and there were three generations there, just before my eyes. There was a woman in her late twenties with her own mother and a very young baby (say less than 24 months) scuttling around the floor. The baby was picking up sheer nigthies, putting them againt her and dancing along to the tune playing in the shop (must have been the one that goes 'you wish your girlfriend was hot like me'). Mummy and granma were cheering along and saying things like 'shake your bum' 'yeah, be sexy!' and similar niceties. Then I decided to distract the baby from 'being sexy' with some babytalk and funny faces, because that sight was hurting my stomach. I must be a terrifingly prude vitorian maiden (at the ripe age of 27) and i never realised.

[Sophia]

"Would you start a MACHO-GUYS-IN-HUMVEES blog? Or a BIG-BLOKES-WHO-TAKE-STEROIDS-AND-PUMP-IRON blog? It's pathetic."

Because parenting is just like owning a truck, or body-building. Would you (universal you) start a blog for dads? Of course. I'm quite sure there are plenty. Perhaps it's a shame that there isn't one here, but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with mothers talking to each other on the internet about what they do with their kids.

"I used to think Caitlin Moran was quite a good writer but now...well, now I see she's revealed as....a mother-of-two."

Yes, all that time you were reading her articles and thinking they were good you were sadly mistaken. Her motherhood clings like a putrifying miasma to every word, whilst simultaneously producing an illusion of quality so the uninitiated reader cannot see the rot. Now you know the terrible truth all her columns on every subject will miraculously be revealed as drivel. The idea that anyone should have anything to say about the trivial topic of bringing another human being into the world! If she's going to do anything so disgusting as give birth to a child, she should at least have the decency to pretend she hasn't, or else stop writing professionally - wait, what decade are we in?

[c boylan]

Oh yuk. I can't believe this blog. ALPHA MUMMY??? You cannot be serious???!!! Really? No? I feel ill. Would you start a MACHO-GUYS-IN-HUMVEES blog? Or a BIG-BLOKES-WHO-TAKE-STEROIDS-AND-PUMP-IRON blog? It's pathetic. I used to think Caitlin Moran was quite a good writer but now...well, now I see she's revealed as....a mother-of-two. Fasten that shoelace, Caitlin, and spoon in that yoghurt. Never mind that writin' thing, you got alphamummy stuff to do. Please share the recipe for gloopy green slop. Ye-f'ing-gods, please remind me what decade are we in?!

[Shannon]

Id rather give my child a sexy clothes that giver her some sexy toys that eventually will go to trash, id rather buy those beyonce the house of dereon clothing line than stuff toys. http://www.beyoncehouseofdereonclothingline.com

[jane]

I have 4 daughters aged from 9 down to 20 months and am becoming increasingly alarmed at the amount of sexually ornientated stuff marketed at kids. It is practically impossible to get clothes for kids over toddler age that arew appropriate for little girls. Another thing that worries me even more are the practically pornographic images used in kost music videos. they usually have fully dressed males with barely dressed women gyrating, licking cars,and mimicing sex acts etc stc. These are shown during the day on satellite TV where any kids can watch them. thankfully we don't have satellite for this very reason and never will (I see them in the gym where they seem to run all day). Teh playboy stuff is appalling, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it in John Lewis the other day!

[Lane]

I have never had a problem with my daughter having Bratz dolls, having thought they were just Pan Asian Barbies with macrocephaly. Having read this blog I thought I'd go and inspect them more closely. Yes, they are dressed in mini skirts and footless tights and they all have what look like orthopaedic boots on their unfeasibly large feet (probably to balance their unfortunate macrocephaly) and yet I would still say that they resemble My Little Pony, (which was manuafactured because little girls like hair and horses) far more than any human being, with perhaps the exception of a morphed Beyonce. The fact that they wear trashy clothing has no more made my daughter want to wear anything different to jeans and a t-shirt than I ever wanted to wear the bum skimming dayglo mini modelled by my own beloved Pippa doll - remember those?

[Cain]

Well you all have to realise that these companies do this for the money , SEX SELLS, its a world-known fact... (Now dont get me wrong, because I think that children (12 and below) should be allowed to keep their innocense and not worrying about what they wear etc etc)

But you parents have to realise that in the modern world, the world today, children grow up fast.. girls aged 13+ (not all, but in Sweden where im from, most) have sex, wear sexy clothing, drink etc etc..

And your struggle to prevent it only makes it worse.. so next time your 12-13 year old daughter/son asks you for sexual advice etc, dont start shouting sayin theyre too young - instead help them and explain. (Always wear a condom!)

dunno why I started talkin about this but I get so annoyed at media trying to make todays 14-15 year olds look like children - they're not.

[Fiz]

It's times like this that I'm glad I have two boys.....(I know i'll be eating my words in about 10 years though :-/ )

[Lisa]

I'm sorry to disappoint Sarah and other moms, but my mom got my ears pierced when I was 5. I actually ended up listening to rock and roll when I was a teenager, and still listen to it. But I never tried any kind of drugs or offered my body on the street - I enjoyed my childhood and my teenager years, and when it was time I was conscient enough about the "dangers" that we face during our development - so it was my own choice that made me away from them.
I'm about to become a bachelor in Law and I think that, more than having or not the ears pierced, it was my family support and orientation that allowed me to be raised the way I was.

[Mags]

I was surprised to see the Polly Pocket toy on your list. I consider that I am very careful about what my daughters (age 6 and 4) are exposed to. The only TV my 4 year old watches is CBeebies and my 6 year old watches a very limited amount of other programmes, such as Strictly Come Dancing and the recent Bill Oddie wildlife series. They both dress appropriately for their age, including their pants. After my younger daughter's fourth birthday party last month, I swiftly whisked away the Bratz dolls she was given as presents by some of her 3 and 4 year old friends (presumably purchased by their mothers). I would not countenance buying most of the toys featured in your list for either of my girls, and yet our birthday present to the 4 year old was the Polly Pocket Cruise Ship. It didn't cross my mind for a moment that I would be setting her off on the slippery slope to debauchery by buying her a toy which is really all about pretending to be on holiday.

[papa]

Homework: compare and contrast the behaviour, language and demands of children who spend time in front of a TV and those who don't have a TV at home. Oh, you don't know any kids in the no-TV grouping? I live in a part of London where there are many religious families who don't have a TV at home. Trust me - you can spot the difference.

[James Montgomery]

Get the kids a dog. Let them learn, with the aid of woofer's gentle demonstrations in the park, the mystery and wonder of carnal lust.

[The Unicorn Lady]

I could go on forever about this subject. However, I totally agree - thongs for little girls is WRONG. Bratz and Bling Barbie send the wrong messages and too many children are hooked on tv. I am so glad my 9 year old daughter is a tomboy, who prefers books, bikes and playing outside. As for clothing, its nigh on impossible to find her suitable items to wear - all too often we find its tight tiny tops and micro skirts. Where are the proper jeans, not hipsters? Aaaggghhh!

[Caroline Swift]

So far as ear piercing for babies and very young children is concerned, I seem to recall that this was tied to a superstition that it would improve their eyesight.

[supermother]

We found sending them to girls only schools and buying them a horse helped avoid all this stuff until a suitable age. I don't like from a feminist point of view, not a sexual point of view, girls being made to think their worth is their looks only.

There is one topic in the UK we love to censor because it is so uncomfortable for people and that is that children feeling sexy and many reach orgasm. I did. I might well not have had a pole dance set bought for me at 10 but I was certainly making use of bits of rope. So you can take the pole dance kit away from the girl but you can't remove her sexuality, thank God unless you're one of those families in the UK who send her abroad for FMG or we go back 100 years to the Victorians tying the hands of children up at night so they can't touch themselves.