“Baby Dolls” by Becky Robinson

For my English class, we were assigned to choose three flash fiction pieces. The first short story I read was “Baby Dolls,” by Becky Robinson, a brief story about the narrator’s mother giving birth. The narrator’s mother is initially described as a “Raggedy Ann” doll, to represent her young age, and the birth of her child leads her to become a woman.

During my first read, I was confused by the metaphoric purpose of Raggedy Ann and the general plot. Upon understanding how the doll was a metaphor for innocence, I realized that the narrator’s mom was a young girl. Her innocence and child-like unknowing are present in the story, highlighted through her Shirley temples, her laughter that imitates the adults near her when her water broke, and her skirt shorter than a cat’s tail. I feel as though the last line ties the entire story together. The line, “only I was able to bring her to life, each shock of me making bone and blood of her soft body, carving chambers into her two-dimensional valentine heart,” demonstrates the change from girlhood to womanhood in an instant. Personally, I wonder how womanhood and personification did not come to the mother when she was first impregnated, and I am further curious how her innocence only evaporated once her child was born.