My mother-in-law thinks Barbie is a bad influence for my daughter...

As long as you explain to your daughter that real women don't look like Barbie, there shouldn't be any problem. Kids aren't as impressionable as a lot of people think. They do listen to what they're told and they do pay attention as long as those lessons are reinforced. Barbie is not to blame for women with body issues, it's the media and the models that are strutted about everywhere we go.

I don't think you have to worry. I think most girls now a days play with barbies. I know my neice did and trust me she doesn't look anything like barbie. At two and half all your daughter knows is she likes the stories and playing with the doll. When she's older you can explain if need be that people come in all sizes and types. let her enjoy her childhood while she can and don't worry about your mother-in-law.

There's nothing wrong with Barbie. Your little girl is too young to think she needs to look like Barbie. I'm sure right now she's just fascinated to see a doll speak and move. My kids love Barbie, my 2 and 6 year olds and none of them are thinking they want to look like Barbie. We keep teasing my 6 year old that she needs to diet, she is even saying she's losing weight but she already looks pregnant LOL.

My daughters both play with barbies and they are 5 and 2. I think that as long as you give them a balanced outlook on life it won't affect them that badly.

If your mother in law thinks Barbie was bad. I hate to see what she thinks of the Bratz dolls, lol. I don't see the big deal with Barbie. My girls plays with barbies and bratz, and they could care less about there size. Makeup and clothes, that's a different story all together.

i don't beleive that barbie will have a bad effect on a child. it's just a toy. there are so many worst things in this world to worry about than a toy.

My girls always had Barbies, now my granddaughter comes along and it's nothing but those Bratz dolls UGH! They are sooooo ugly, to me, but she really loves them. Each generation has a doll that they favor. If the child is a girl, she is going to fall in love with this or that. Believe me, it will change several times in the next few years for you. I don't see any harm in it. Let her play and use her imagination, it helps grow their little minds and teaches them creativity.

Little girls admire grown up girls who are pretty and nice. That's generally how little girls are.

I don't think the Barbie in a DVD that a two-and-a-half-year old watches is going to even be remembered in a few years.

Besides, in a world full of people who blame Barbie for little girls' having bad self-images, I don't happen to be one of those people.

Wanting to be thin and pretty is what most girls want, regardless of Barbie. Wanting to be thin and pretty isn't such a bad thing to want to be, and not all girls who want that develop eating disorders.

Besides, I believe that girls have self-image problems because heterosexual young girls are often going to find the narrow, straight, build of their male counterparts the most attractive thing. Teen girls who keep their stick-straight builds a little longer may be happier than girls who get curves, because the minute the curves show up it can take heterosexual girls away from what they find is attractive.

To further aggravate the problem, many males prefer the youthful build that slender girls have. (Its built into evolutionary hardwiring that small waists indicate youthfulness.)

I think the wish to be thin and pretty is just there in a lot of girls. In fact, as a girl raised on Barbie and the mother and aunt of another generation of girls raised on Barbie, I tend to think it is the natural appeal of thin and pretty that makes Barbie so appealing to little girls (rather than Barbie's making "converts" out of people who otherwise wouldn't be interested in thin and pretty).

I'm not in favor of raising little girls without emphasizing their inner qualities, and I'd certainly do whatever I could if I thought my daughter seemed to be developing an unhealthy obsession with being too thin. Still, being slim is a healthy thing to be, and being pretty is a nice thing to be.

Besides, my daughter has echoed my own words: "I played with Barbie, and I knew she was a doll. It never occurred to me to think I could be like the doll when I grew up."

I believe when little girls are raised with the right values and with the right kind of good sense they know the difference between a doll and themselves. I tend to think that eating disorders and similar unhealthy obsessions with appearance are rooted in something far more complex and deep-rooted than Barbie dolls. In fact, I don't think Barbie has the power to influence little girls that so many people seem to think she does. (If she didn't there would be a whole lot fewer overweight girls in this world.)

Maybe I'm wrong - but those are my thoughts.