The Last Straw

One of the best things about this time of year is meeting old friends. But Christmas can also be a time for making new friends, who may be part of your life for years to come. This is especially true if you're a parent.

Fortunately, with a bit of effort, the risk can be minimised. Or at least postponed - the option preferred by regular correspondent Ann Fetton, who wrote to me recently on the subject. The new friend Ann is trying to avoid is Barbie, the world-famous doll, who has been seeking an invitation to her home lately via Ann's three-year-old daughter. Apparently the latter told a neighbour she was getting a "dancing Barbie" from Santa. But her mother adds: "I happen to have inside information on this one, and I know she's not."

That information tallies with mine, incidentally. In fact, I heard that the entire Barbie section of Santa's toy factory was destroyed recently in a fire. I believe a number of elves were hospitalised with smoke inhalation after they bravely tried to carry "Hairdresser Barbie" to safety, and she insisted on going back for her accessories; while the Lapland fire department complained that "Fire-fighter Barbie" only got in everyone's way.

Sadly, as I've explained to my own daughter, the blaze spread to the adjoining Barney section (the factory is arranged in alphabetic order). No more elves were injured, but the popular dinosaur is now, tragically, extinct. Eye-witnesses said that, with his last breath, he urged children never to let the water run while brushing their teeth.

Notwithstanding her determined stance, Ann worries about being "unfair and overly feminist" about what is, after all, a hugely popular doll. But I believe that, whatever her influence as a role-model, the sheer extent of the Barbie collection suggests this is a friendship that should be nipped in the bud, if possible.

What parents need to remember is that the doll's initial approach may be perfectly plausible. Perhaps in the guise of Surf City Barbie (only £4.99!), she will befriend your child, like an FBI undercover policewoman in a clothes shop offering fashion advice to a mobster's girlfriend while posing as a customer. (If you missed The Sopranos on Tuesday, the simile may lose something). But once hooked, your child is on a slippery pink slope, to a bottomless pit full of things like the Barbie drying and styling set (£16.99), the Barbie "shop with me" cash register (£49.99), and - God help us - the Barbie ATM machine (£32.99).

I didn't even know there was a Barbie ATM machine until it provoked my daughter's first, all-out public tantrum recently. She had only one of her parents with her at the time and, by a stroke of luck, it wasn't me. But my wife was later (thanks to counselling) able to describe the incident.

With uncanny similarities to The Sopranos, it started when she and Roisin were in the children's clothes section of a department store. They had made elaborate detours to avoid the toy section, "but we took a wrong turn". And suddenly, they were in Barbie-land.

It was the middle of the afternoon and Roisin was tired, a condition which - child experts know - in 95 per cent of cases leads to sleep. Occasionally, however, it leads to the child experiencing a fierce, irrational desire to possess something - often an object currently possessed by the child's brother. This time it was the Barbie ATM machine. And Roisin went through all the classic stages of child-rage: from the opening argument, "buy it now - I want it", to the bit where she was writhing on the floor, screaming, as if taken over by evil spirits. Other parents passed with sympathetic smiles, while my wife, turning the colour of Barbie's universe, consoled herself that at least it wasn't happening on an aeroplane.

Unfair or not, trying to influence your child's cultural tastes is usually futile. Bear in the Big Blue House may be a vastly superior TV programme to Barney, for example, but the latter has a mesmeric effect on young children that the former can't match. Like many parents, I'm a big fan of the Bear's work (happily, the fire in Santa's toy factory was brought under control just before the BEA section). But for all his singing and dancing talents, the kids watch the programme with a dutiful air, while waiting for the prehistoric superstar to come on.

As for the likes of Barbie, as Ann concedes, we'll probably have to give in when the children are older. But the delay may at least limit the extent of their collection. Who knows? It might even help later on if - God forbid - they become Manchester United fans, and another limitless world of accessories opens up, just as tacky, but red instead of pink.

fmcnally@irish-times.ie