Fake Dolls' Moms Get Reality Show

Madeline Holler — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:01:00 GMT

We've talked about Reborn dolls here at Strollerderby before. How they're creepy, and kind of sad, and also causing lots of confusion when left inside a car on a hot day. Well, there's more to say. These super lifelike newborn look-alike dolls, which sell for up to $4,000, and the people who, um, own? parent?, them are getting their own show.

"My Fake Baby" debuts tonight at 9 p.m. on BBC America. The above video is a clip from the show. How sweet is that guy in the grocery store? Could the doll maker send me a fake version of him?

Reborn dolls have been sold aruond the world. They've also got a pretty substantial American following. The Today Show featured a few ... moms? ... this morning.

You know, as much as I've written about these dolls, they still make me shudder. But I'm trying to keep an open mind. One woman interviewed by Matt Lauer said her fascination with the dolls is not different than a grown man's fascination with model trains. Sure ... but does he start crying when he holds the miniature caboose?

Video: RealityBlurred.com

"Reborns," Dolls That Satisfy That Maternal Urge. Ew.

Karen Murphy — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:04:00 GMT

"I love babies. When you go out and push a pram everybody looks. You feel somebody when you've got a baby. I could walk down the street now and nobody looks at you but when you've got a baby loads of people will stop and talk to you."

When is a baby not a baby? When it's a "reborn", a doll painstakingly tweaked to look, feel, and sound real.

And women are falling over themselves on eBay or ordering custom jobs through professional reborners to get them, spending thousands of dollars on the cult of reborns (don't call them "dolls", please!), outfits, and accessories. And it all makes perfect sense, except...

It's totally creeping me out. The photos of them look like photos of real-but-dead babies. And who wants to hang around with a dead baby?

However, Jessica had a different take on them: "I asked Santa to bring me one on Christmas Eve so I could sit in the front yard in a manger I fashioned out of sticks and bark dust so everyone passing by would think I was the Blessed Virgin. Amazing the esteem ten hours in a stinky hut with a fake baby will give you."

But one husband said, "These babies look a bit too realistic for me. I think the girls get a bit too involved with them. I can’t really see any purpose for them.” Unless you could figure out a way to reanimate them...

Professional reborners take your doll and create a custom zombie-like creation based on your specifications, spending hours painstakingly applying rooted hair, for example, or blushing the bottoms of the feet, creating something so eerily realistic-yet-fake that I am entirely creeped out just looking at them, letting alone imagining having a roomful of them to dress as I please. Whatever happened to little toy-sized dogs? Don't they amount to about the same thing? Sure, the reborns don't eat much or poop (though they drink pretend bottles filled with milky-looking fabric softener) but many have warming pouches so the baby is actually warm, breathing mechanisms, wriggling mechanisms, heartbeat, and birth marks. Ew.

So why have a real baby at all? Those poop and cry and grow up and talk back and eventually leave you. Why not just sit home with your roomful of reborns that stay babies forever, and you'd never have to age or face reality.

Photo: oaktreenurseryreborns.com

Strollerderby : reborns

Fake Dolls' Moms Get Reality Show

"Reborns," Dolls That Satisfy That Maternal Urge. Ew.