CHAPTER 2 :
INNOCENCE LOST
(1984)
There was a particular toy I kept carefully put away in the corner of the tall, white, over-the-desk bookshelf in my childhood bedroom. I waited a long time to get it. I was embarrassed that I liked baby dolls until the end of my twelfth year, and I didn’t get the memo that playing with dolls wasn’t cool until it was a little too late. I was in seventh grade—junior high, middle school, and almost a teenager. Though age-appropriately self-conscious about other things, like what I wore or the style of my hair, I didn’t care about being teased by a few friends on occasion for this. I had seen the piles of stuffed animals and a few dolls in the closets of their more mature bedrooms. My love of playing with dolls, at least in the privacy of my room, still outweighed the fear of losing my status as a popular kid.
It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized my love for dolls had everything to do with being an only child. I liked stuffed animals and 1980s classics like Rubik’s Cubes and multi-colored Slinkies too, but I only liked dolls that looked realistic, the kind you could diaper and pretend were real babies. I never wanted a collectible doll in a box or Barbies who were not easily wrapped in a blanket and fed a life-sized bottle. When I was young, my dolls were often an imaginary baby brother or sister. I didn’t have a sibling of my own, so I had to improvise.
I attended Catholic school in the 1970s and 80s, which at that time meant that all of my friends but one came from large families. Until I was old enough to figure out a few things, I was confused about why I was the only kid in my family. In my house you could hear a pin drop on any day at any time, and I spent every possible opportunity at my friends’ houses, loving the intimate chaos found around their dinner tables. There were food fights and other disputes that broke out between siblings. If I wasn’t at Meegan’s, Ellie’s, Susan’s, Beth’s, or Maggie’s house, my ever-patient mom was hosting a slumber party at our house with enough girls to form a basketball team.
My favorite toy with its place of honor at the top of my shelf, I’m ashamed to say, was a Cabbage Patch Kid. The coveted and costly doll of the 1980s led many desperate parents to wait in long lines at
