playing dolls

Last summer one of my mother's cousins was clearing out her parent's home and offered her old Ginny dolls to Mary and Maggie. Included in the boxes was the doll's trousseau, ball gowns and raingear, nightgowns, and shoes of all sorts. I found a pair of ballerina Ginnys on clearance for $10 each for one of their Christmas gifts and ever since they have set up a little doll play area in a corner of my bedroom.

So, I am able very often to listen in on their play conversations while reading on the bed. Yesterday proved that they are both watching too many BBC productions when I overheard this exchange between the two older girls in a faux British accent:

"Would you care do dance my lady?"

"I'm sure that I'm not otherwise engaged sir."

I don't think it a coincidence that the dolls are named Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia and their last name happens to be Bennett.

Later Timmy, Charlie, and Maggie were playing dolls quietly together. There is ample proof that Maggie has been reading either the Little House books or Caddie Woodlawn in bed after hearing this:

"I want to go ice skating!"

"No, only boys can go play outside. Girls back then had to stay in the house and help their mother with the housework. Boys had to help their fathers in the fields."

"But I want to go!"
"Charlie, way back then children were obedient to their parents."

To be sure, there is plenty of play talk which involves playing house in which the mother is mean and makes the children clean their rooms and do their schoolwork, but it is fascinating to see what cultural bits and pieces they have picked up.