NIGHT OF THE LIVING DOLLS

Ron Reagan, the son of the former president, once felt obliged to defend himself and his wife from people who wanted to know why they didn't have children. I can't locate the exact quote word for word, but it was something like, Well, we have four dogs, and that's like having kids. All of you who have kids of your own can agree with that, right? Right?

No, nothing equals the raising of a child, with all the wonder, love, and worry it entails. Unless your one of the new breed of women called Reborners. And in keeping with their name, Reborners are something of a religion. The New York Post reports:

Rockabye, plastic...

The Reborn community is a tight-knit, creative class of mostly women who create, collect and role-play with dolls that look so much like real babies, they’re spooky and beautiful all at once.

Go to YouTube and search “Reborn doll”and you’ll find more than 90,000 videos from people of all ages showing off their incredibly realistic, hand-painted dolls and role-playing with them in ways that feel both playful and intensely intimate.

Make it stop!

Not to mention intensely Twilight Zone-ish. These aren't little girls playing Mommy, but mommies playing Mommy. Yes, many of these women have real, flesh-and-blood kids who do annoying things that kids do -- eat, throw up, have bowel movements, etc. What better way to have a perfect baby than to have a phony one?

Not that it's as much fun to make the Reborn babies as it does real ones:

Reborn dolls weigh 4 to 5 pounds and have weighted limbs and a cloth body that give them the feel of a real baby. The head is also filled with glass beads to give it the floppy likeness of an actual newborn.

Shh. Don't wake the, uh, thing...

They're not the only ones glass beads for brains. These women are so into these dolls that they bring them on errands and walk them around Disneyland in strollers. Don't believe me? There's a whole page of of 'em on YouTube for you to ooh, ahh, and gag over.


As for what other people think of this kind of behavior, Reborner Stephanie Ortiz assures us, Trump-like, that public interactions are "amazing," adding, "I've never had any negative comments."

You know why, Steph? Because people think you're crazy, and just want to get the hell away from you as fast as possible. Not that it bothers her:

And despite any backlash she may encounter, Ortiz says she’s only becoming more inspired to film more serious role-play videos with her dolls and go on adventurous outings.

OK, there's nothing wrong with harmless hobbies. But what would you think if you saw me dragging around one of my movie posters in public and interacting with the images as if they were real people? At least I save that for the privacy of my home.

There was a time when when Reborners were called "nuts," and committed to the local cracker factory. Now Stephanie Ortiz is free to drag herself out of bed at one in the morning to change her doll's diapers. Man, I would so love to see her go at it with Ron Reagan as to which one has it the hardest.

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