Homeless Dolls and Homeless Famiies

Family homelessness has migrated into the playrooms of privileged children, thanks to Gwen the homeless doll. Gwen is the latest creation of the American Girl Doll Company, which specializes in selling lovely and expensive dolls and their equally lovely and expensive accessories to the offspring of affluent families. And affluent parents expect more for their dollar than just entertainment: the dolls represent girls from specific historical periods and ethnic groups and are marketed with books that describe their lives. Playtime with a nudge toward AP history and one small step toward the Ivys- what could be better?
But Gwen, the latest doll, goes a bit farther. She is homeless, and her accompanying story describes the difficulties that she and her single mother have experienced. Gwen has provoked a great deal of controversy: Is she a further iteration of the poverty spectacle, a sanitized version of bum-bashing? Does she understate the difficulties of poverty- she is, after all, clothed neatly and has combed and styled blond hair. Is it wrong to allow affluent children to amuse themselves by playing with the less fortunate?
Maybe. But Gwen provides a new sort of learning. She shows us the developing face of homelessness, providing a valuable corrective to the dominant portrayal. We've all seen the dominant story, usually accompanied by photos that portray homeless individuals as a collection of pathologies. The homeless, they tell us, are are too disabled to work, won't take their psychiatric medication, are dirty, unkempt, and disruptive. This is an incomplete picture, and is, unfortunately, the portrayal that has become the the 'public' face of homelessness.
But the face of homelessness in contemporary America is increasingly the face of Gwen and her mother. Homeless families are a growing share of the population. In the majority of these families, the parents or parent work, or are looking for work. Like Gwen's fictive mother, they try to keep their children neat and to normalize their lives as they move from shelters, to vehicles, to friends' sofas. Their public face, in other words, is much like that of any other American family: a portrait gallery of this homeless population would look like families pictured in ads for Target or Sears.
It is amazing, in fact, that Gwen has made it into the American Girl line, because her story ought to be quite disturbing to the families who purchase her. The playrooms and designer-decorated bedrooms where Gwen lives with the other American Girls might not be forever: an increasing number of real Gwens have made the journey from similar environs to relatives' sofas. And there is something else: the playrooms and lovely bedrooms, the money to purchase Gwen and her expensive accessories and American Girl companions are produced by a system in which wealth at the top increasingly depends on the poverty and insecurity of families like Gwen's.
In real life, the Gwens live in one or two parent families where the parents or parent piece together multiple low-wage jobs, working wildly varying shits, and receiving no benefits.. And even these jobs are not secure: there are frequent layoffs, and taking a day off because you, or your child, is ill are grounds for termination. There is another thing about Gwen's real world- the parents who put forth this effort cannot always afford to provide stable housing. Gwen, in other words, reminds us that there are no storybook endings for an increasing number of American girls, their siblings, and the families in which they live.
For a discussion of the Gwen controversy, see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/29/american-girls-homeless-d_n_302981.html