I would have liked to read the ages of the young (?) women who are shown here, talking about American Girl dolls. Gosh, when did American Girl dolls debut? You gals must be young twenty-somethings. My daughter is now 26 and we bought her American Girl doll very early, in the very first few years the dolls were sold.

I think the age of the women having this discussion is very relevant. If you gals grew up with American Girls being a routine part of your toy landscape then OF COURSE your relationship to Barbie is very different than, for example, my relationship with Barbie.

I am 54. When I was five years old, which is the age my daughter was when we bought Samantha, there were no other national dolls. Barbie was the whole game.

I was thrilled when American Girls came out and I had an opportunity to buy a wholesome doll for my daughter. Also, I loved the way the dolls were tied to books and history.

My daughter and I were aghast as we watched many of her friends acquire many American Girl dolls. My Katie? She loved Samantha. It never crossed our minds to buy more. Of course, you couldn't order the dolls that looked like Katie when she was very young.

Which reminds me: to the women in this story, gosh, how old were you when you got the doll that supposedly looked like you? Those haven't been sold all that long. By the time you could order dolls that looked like you, my kid was done with dolls. How long did you gals play with dolls?

My niece, who is 13 now, she got all the AG dolls. This appalled me and my daughter. My daughter loved each and every doll she owned. They were almost like people to both her and me. We could never have loved six AG dolls. . . or however many. . .

We decided to focus on Samantha. We acquired a lot of Samantha stuff. We never got everything. Plus, as the writers of this story must know, there are industries that make stuff for the AG dolls. We bought clothes for Samantha at craft events. We bought doll furniture like Samantha had in the books but we didn't buy it all from AG. So my daughter got some lessons in economics. I showed her that the picnic set from the catalogue cost X dollars but we could have the same look for much less money.

Another thing. . . I made matching dresses for my daughter and Samantha. One year, they had matching Xmas dresses. I made a cap just the one Samantha had in the catalogue. . . and I even made the muff and matching fur hat. . . and I made the same set for my daughter. Gosh, that was a lot of fun.

I tend to dislike the AG trend. It seems to offering girls prefabricated experiences. I had to strike some kind of balance as I raised my daughter. . . I wanted her to be happy and I knew I couldn't avoid all the trends that wash through children's lives. . . buying Samantha and focussing on her as one of our most special dolls/toys, this allowed my daughter to be in the trend but it also allowed she and I to be creative together. It was awesome, shopping for fabric for matching dresses for the girls.

I always spoke of Samantha as my grandchild.

Also, Fluffy, my grandbunny. I loved her a lot too.

And my mother got into the play. She bought all her granddaughteres AG dolls (she actually bought my daughter's doll . . I wouldn't spend my money on it so we snuck it in through grandma) . . and then my mother had a cabinetmaker friend of hers make gorgeous trunks for each of the dolls. The cabinetmaker charged a fraction of what the trunks cost in the AG catalogue. . and they were exquisite. They were velvet-lined, they had shelves inside them. . . the one we got for Samantha we actually much, much nicer than the trunk sold in the catalogue.

As you can see, these are happy memories for me.

I feel that your gals, writing this article, have overlooked a lot of the context/texture/culture framing of these dolls. AG dolls are not just about little girls. . . they are about mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters. They are about shaping human culture.

A reason I keep returning to the question of your ages is that you gals are obvious young and not quite observant of much of the rich context of those dolls.

I am 28. I had one, Kirsten. I chose her for the fact she was the same ethnic background as my family, Swedish. there, you have he age of a poster.

Your seem to be under a misconception of today's mother. Most of us aren't able to have all that time to spend making and creating the trucks, clothes, etc....in today's economy, most of us have to work just to make ends meet...barely meet. I'm happy for you that your family sounds as though it was well off enough for you to have that extra time. Rare few do these days.

As one who is artistically inclined, I get frustrated at not having the time to do those things for my daughter, but at least I can still be able to share in the stories and imaginings of what it was like in those days depicted in the AG books.

We are still shaping, just in a different way, dealing with the constraints we are giving.

I'm 30, and lately, reading Slate has made me feel REALLY old. Is it just me or do all the writers seem to be 22?

I can't relate to this article at all. I had never heard of the AG dolls until about 8 years ago (when *I* was just out of college) and I was on a business trip in Chicago. I was staying in a swanky hotel in that really swanky area of the city. Each morning at breakfast this woman would come down with two little girls in UNBELIEVABLE outfits that matched those of their dolls. It was one of those things that you could not believe your eyes- here were these little girls decked out like no one's business- vintage looking dresses, hats, little perfect shoes, the whole nine yards. And here they are at this incredibly expensive hotel brunching with their mum before a day of shopping on the town.It was like a trip back to some incredibly classist era. I heard them talking about visiting the AG store, and that's when I learned about the dolls. I since have just associated them with the ultra-rich.

I too had barbies in the early 80s. Barbie was everything back then. They had a bad effect on me though. I hated myself for most of my childhood because I didn't have blond hair. I judged almost every woman on met on whether they were blond, tall, and thin or not. It was really bad, and it HAD to come from barbie originally, even if it was later reinforced by experiences (for some reason the teachers' pets were always the cute little blond girls...)