Life In Plastic!

The Barbie craze is back! And with its return, it's interesting to probe her impact on women. 

A good friend shared her view that the “Barbie” movie was cool because it showed that a woman can do anything, while it is simultaneously impossible to be a woman. Like millions of us, my friend grew up playing with Barbie. She loved that Barbie had her own dream house, a multitude of outfits, and endless professions. Barbie made anything possible. She can be anything, do anything, and dress in any way, and, though we all have our own story of how Barbie influenced us, she was meant to be every girl’s girl. But she fell short of this in my life.

Growing up, Barbie was too expensive for my parents to buy for me. To me, Barbiesymbolized wealth and a beauty no woman could ever match, a physical ideal I could never live up to. 

The first Barbie I ever received was a Christmas gift from church donations. While I was initially excited to hold my own Barbie in my little hands, I spent my time playing in the woods, building forts, getting dirty, and playing with boxes, the garden hose, and anything that could weather the outside elements. So I hardly played with Barbie, afraid to get her dirty or break her. I was not the buttoned-up, pretty girl, and to me, Barbie was never an inspiration. Instead, she set a standard that I began to compare my worth to. 

Today the unattainable plastic life is suddenly everywhere again. The airbrushed, filtered, everyday we see on social media exposes the wonderful 1% of one’s life, leaving you with the feeling that you are not living up to what the ideal woman is. 

Who is your Barbie? Who are you trying to measure up to? Is it your best friend who has her kids all in line, gets to her Pilates class daily, and seems to have a rock-solid marriage while you struggle to get your yoga pants on? Is it your sister who has a great job and always has a positive attitude, and never seems to struggle while you continue to live paycheck to paycheck? Is it your mom who always keeps a clean house, is on God’s good side, volunteers everywhere, and always seems to say the right thing while you believe that the church just might burn down when you walk in? Could it be that you are trying to live up to an unrealistic ideal of how you are “supposed” to be? 

I believe the most significant challenge we have as women is comparing ourselves to unrealistic models and individuals who share with you the 1% of their life. We should never want to live someone else's life or be someone else. Their life is not yours. Nor was it ever supposed to be yours. We are here to live in our own unique way. It is the diversity within women that allows us all to thrive. Being different is a beautiful magic that is becoming rare to find.

We need to know we’ll be OK when something is not working out as we’d like. Instead of viewing someone else’s success as evidence that we are lacking, we should cheer each other on. We need to be OK with who we are and know that the beauty of our struggles provides us with the opportunity to learn and grow into our own unique way of being.

When you live in alignment with who you truly are, when you let go of the comparison game when you can sincerely cheer other women on and celebrate the good, bad, and ugly in your life, chances are you just might find that being a woman is an amazing gift with endless possibilities. Choose to live in the realness of this life and not a plastic life!