I saw an interesting article the other day about dolls specially made to represent people with disabilities. Down Syndrome, cancer, blindness are being represented in some of the new dolls being made, as well as dolls that use wheelchairs. The article gives three different perspectives, one in support of the doll and two against. The support says that children should be able to have dolls that look like them, while the opposition says that it puts too much focus on children’s differences. Personally, much the way I wish dolls representing other races were more readily available (I remember last Christmas finding a non-white doll for my partner’s mixed niece was difficult to say the least), I think that people with disabilities should be represented, even with dolls. I don’t think we should be trying to convince children that they’re no different than “everyone else”. Children don’t fall for that. I think we should be showing children, as cheesy as it sounds, that everyone is different and that we should embrace differences in each other rather than to just pretend they don’t exist. You can find the doll article here.

What do you think? Are dolls representing people with disabilities a good thing or a bad thing?