Reborn Dolls. Adorable or horrifyingly creepy?

It's a beautiful october day and you've decided to take your pooch for a walk in the park. A lady in her mid forties is wheeling around a stroller. You think she's a bit old to have her first child and you peer into the stroller to see a beautiful sleeping baby. You can't help but notice the little darling. "Oh, she's beautiful what's her name!?" you exclaim. "Her name is Abby". You look a bit close to touch her tiny little arm and feel she feels shockingly cold and hard. You are completely taken aback. This grown women is toting around a baby doll. Quickly you mutter something and jog off.

"Reborns" sound like some horrific alien clones out of a sci-fi movie, but they're actually a name for eireely life like baby dolls. Reborns are made to look and feel like a real infant. Some of them even breathe and suck on a pacifier. If you don't believe me have a look for your self. Talented women craft these little creatures and there is quite a market for them. Some seemingly normal ladies will pay top dollar to get these collectors items. On the little more extreme side, they are not just displayed but they are talked to, bathed, changed clothes and diapers, toted around in strollers, and held.

The women who love them claim they provide a source of comfort. One claims she suffered 7 miscarriages and wasn't able to have a child of her own. She also could not afford to adopt so this filled her maternal instinct. In nursing homes they can provide companionship and well being to confused residents who desperately miss their grown children.Think about women who are mentally retarded and wish to be a mommy some day. They may lack the mental capacity to care for an actual child, but can feel good about taking care of a doll that looks and feels like a real baby.

I suppose there are all sorts of simulators of real life. Video games with realistic graphics, toys for genital pleasure, stuffed animals. All to fill some sort of human want or need that can't nessecarily be fufilled in real life for some reason. People love to pretend. We pretend all the time, we like to pretend we're rich, pretend we're happy. So why not pretend to be a mother?

There are definitely some pro's to the dolls. I think they're really freaking cute. I would definitely want my daughter to have one. Would I ever have one though? Hell no. In my opinion it's a little like being a crazy cat lady, but at least the cats are alive. They aren't staring at you with cold glass eyes in the middle of the night just waiting to be possessed by a wandering evil spirit. (I'm only partly kidding.) I mean it's like having a dead baby or a room full of frozen dead babies. Some of them are anatomically correct as well. What if a sick minded individual gets their hands on a fake baby? I shudder just to think of it.

I don't think it's bad, as long as you're not tending to the "baby" so much you sort of lose your mind and consider them a part of your everyday life. That's the point where it becomes scary. I think collecting is sort of weird but it's none of my business if it brings people comfort and joy! What do you think of this?