Saks Pioneers Newborn Nursery Adoption Centers
Last month the Middleton Doll Company announced it will expand its Newborn Nursery® Adoption Centers into five additional Saks Department Stores.
“The expansion of this unique award-winning retail concept into additional Saks Incorporated stores will enable many more young girls to experience the ‘adoption’ of their very own lifelike baby doll in a simulated hospital nursery setting,” said George R. Schonath, president and chief executive officer of The Middleton Doll Company.
With chubby cheeks, bright eyes, soft hair and an incredibly lifelike face, the Newborn Nursery baby dolls are so realistic they look like a real baby. The Newborn Nursery centers provide the perfect setting for the “adoption” experience.
Once a young girl looks through the Newborn Nursery hospital viewing window and selects her very own Newborn Nursery baby doll from a wide variety of hair, skin and eye color combinations, a store associate dressed like a nurse helps her complete official Newborn Nursery “adoption” papers.
The parent-to-be must promise to read stories to her new baby doll and take her to the park. And of course, the parent-to-be can name her baby doll whatever she likes. Once the “adoption” certificate is complete, the parent-to-be dons a hospital gown and watches the “nurse” carefully carry her baby doll out of her crib to a changing table for a baby doll check-up.
The new parent-to-be is given careful instructions on how to properly care for her baby doll while the “nurse” checks the baby doll’s “heartbeat” and powders the real diaper. Once the “nurse” determines the baby doll is healthy enough to be “adopted,” the parent-to-be is able to hold her new baby doll for the first time.
No word on whether adoption subsidy or post-adoption services are available. Perhaps Saks should team up with the Child Welfare League of America to place REAL foster children into these nurseries! Adoption.com could sell keychains and fine art reprints. Shoppers would enjoy specials and periodic markdowns, 10% off coupons and special two for one deals. The nurse would surely be more efficient than our nation’s family court system in finalizing the adoptions. The possibilities are endless. I’m betting a franchise of this operation will reduce the adoption backlog to zero. Wal-Mart anyone?
Sue
October 27, 2004 (6:44 pm)
This is one sick retail concept, equating adoption with baby-buying. I would not want my child to learn about adoption this way, nor would I want an adopted child to be asked to “adopt” this way. What better way to help her feel like a piece of meat? Trips to the park indeed! :-p
Charlotte
October 28, 2004 (10:03 am)
We had Cabbage Patch dolls. This is nothing more than a higher-tech version of those; I am an adoptee and not upset over it at all. It is in my opinion, de-stigmatizing the adoption process, and even if you don’t like it, you can look at it from the celebrities’ standpoint of even bad publicity is good publicity because it gets your name out there. This is making adoption a more common concept among children, bringing it out of the shadows and more acceptable to discuss. I think that’s wonderful.
df
October 22, 2005 (12:09 pm)
This seems like a great idea to me. I have two adopted cousins, now in their forties, and beloved members of the family, and with my husband, I have gone through the process of adopting, right up through what is called the home study. There certainly was money involved, although it could not be equated to “buying a baby.” Does anyone really think that kids who “adopt” a doll by buying it are going to try to buy a real baby one day?
Does anyone complain that when children buy “doctor” or “nurse” kits, the needles and medicines are not real, or that the dolls don’t scream when stuck? We approve of such play and even think it may help a child when she/he has to go to the hospital one day. This is play, folks, and just as with the medical kits, children learn something useful about the real world!
Kids who “adopt” a doll may well grow up feeling favorably disposed toward adopting a real child. As for making an adopted child feel like a piece of meat, do we not tell adopted children how we had longed for a child and were so happy when we found them (there having been other children available, presumably)…and make it clear that our adopted child is the perfect one for us?
Yes, this is obviously a marketing ploy. Isn’t almost everything these days? But no, it is not offensive or harmful, that I can see. To the contrary!
pheonixmama
July 6, 2008 (1:32 am)
When I first read this article I thought it was a made-up article to elicit comments from adoptors. Well I was right on one count, adoptors do think it is a great idea. Why wouldn’t they – their the only ones who benefit from it, everyone else involves suffers loss, pain and grief. All I I can say is what a bunch of sickos! Normalising the removal of a child from its mother. If we did this to animals we would, and rightly so, be charged with animal cruelty. Yet Americans want to train their children to reduce the sacredness of blood ties and motherhood to nothing more than buying a commodity and a shopping trip. I note this article is 4 years old – does this disgusting commercialisation of women and children still continue?
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