Lets Force Mattel to Make Bald Barbies

Sounds like a good idea, right? Not to me.

I have seen a bunch of posts going around facebook encouraging people to harass Mattel into making bald barbies for children with cancer and to donate the proceeds to St Judes.

I appreciate the idea and the enthusiasm people have for raising awareness of pediatric cancer. However, in my opinion, these people being so aggressive and hateful towards Mattel just create a negative awareness of the pediatric cancer community.

I have always loved this quote by Gandhi: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Doesn't that make more sense than "Force Mattel to make all the changes for you"?

I know what medical research can do. I understand how vital it is in the fight against childhood cancer. My daughter is alive because of years of cancer research leading up to her diagnosis 6 years ago.

I am not saying they shouldn't promote funds going towards cancer research. I am saying this might not be the way to do it.

In the years that I have been in the pediatric cancer community, I have seen similar issues such as:

• people demanding Disney come up with a bald princess.
• people encouraging others to flood Oprah with requests for a show about pediatric Cancer.
• people trying to stop the production of toddlers and tiaras and instead force TLC to make a show focused on children with cancer

It's easy to copy and paste someone else's status and threaten your friends that if they don't repost, they are not true friends. But really, what are you accomplishing?

One facebook page promoting the idea of harassing Mattel has over 100,000 fans. If you visit the facebook for Mattel, you will notice that their page is flooded with insults, threats to boycott, and attacks on the company for not caring enough for sick children. What exactly do any of these negative posts do to help sick kids?

If every single one of those people complaining donated just a dollar to a cause such as curesearch, think of all the money they would raise.

Even better, if all these people bullying Mattel got together and tried, they could come up with a bald barbie on their own.

Making a bald barbie would be a fun, simple project. And it would probably only run $3-5 to upcycle each barbie. The doll would mean a lot more, as it would come from a place of love and not from a place of intimidation.

How could they make one?

• Get donations of gently used barbies from their 100,000 followers. Remove their hair, patch the holes and paint the scalp skin tone.
• Make a website promoting the idea and put up a paypal link on the page for people to donate money for shipping and craft materials.
• Send out the barbies free of charge to sick kids

Too much work? Fine, but then you really don't have any room to call out Mattel for not caring enough.