Toy like her

Asking for the impossible?

PRE-CHRISTMAS discussion around gifts and the tricky scenario of matching the heart’s desire of an extremely particular six-year-old with those gifts.

Me: “What do want Father Christmas to bring you this year, chicky?”

Amelia: “I want a Barbie doll with hearing aids like mine.”

With hearing aids like mine.

Hmm, I thought. I don’t know if Mattel has made great strides in the toys-for-kids-with-disabilities space to date. Apart from a few limited edition examples, true diversity in Barbie-land seems a long way off.

But old Saint Nick has but one KPI and that is to deliver special goods to order, so as his best elf-in-training, I took up the challenge on his behalf. And I never fail at things like that. Ever.

Amelia is happy to picture herself as other people, imaginary or real. Some days she gets her super-hero vibe on with a bit of Spider-Man play. Other times she wants to act like a baby and be rocked and sung to, giggling into my chest as we pretend.

Kids are fabulous at dreaming up fantasy worlds. But often the most exciting thing for little people (and big people too) is when they recognise something of themselves in their peers, on television, or in books.

So imagine if you are a proud, bilingual deaf girl – and that fact is rather central to your sense of identity – but you hardly ever see that experience reflected anywhere at all. No characters with hearing aids, or who use sign language.

To understand what a critical deficiency this is, it is important to know that Amelia goes to a school for deaf children, so during the week she is surrounded by other deaf children and adults. It is the norm for her.

Yet it’s a rarefied environment, specific to her school life. In the bigger, more dominant hearing world, she is more or less on her own.

Thankfully the times are beginning to change a little, and a wonderful social media campaign (founded by journalist Rebecca Atkinson) for diversity in toys called #Toylikeme has paved the way ahead of us.

We don’t need to lobby toy companies to make Amelia’s doll-with-hearing-aids dream come true, because this movement already has with some success.

My favourite of the companies to jump on board with the idea is called Makies in the UK. They already create gorgeous dolls that can be designed to suit a wide range of looks, clothes (I love the archaeologist career pack) and accessories.

Now they’ve added a range that allows for another level of choice where hearing aids, cochlear implants, wheelchairs, birthmarks and so on are finally a possibility. I was all over it.

After I lovingly chose the specs for Amelia’s doll that shares her name, hair colour, sweet smile and quirky clothes sense, I clicked on ‘hearing aids – pink’. CONFIRM ORDER. Done.

On Monday, the doll version of Amelia arrived and she’s everything my girl (and I) had hoped for. I am beside myself with excitement to see her face on Christmas Day when they meet for the first time.

Just two cool girls with long blonde hair, dark eyes and hearing aids, hanging out together and wondering how Santa could be so switched on.