Growing up, my favorite toys were my Barbie dolls.

I’d play with them all the time, dressing them up in outfits and sending them off on the most outrageous adventures my young mind could imagine.

And although I practically lived and breathed Barbie, I never once looked at one of my dolls and thought, “I have to be her.”

This is one of the main reasons why I don’t like Lammily, the “normal” Barbie doll.

Shorter and with a more average build, the creators of this doll originally modeled her off of a regular Barbie doll. Now she’s available for purchase, complete with stretch mark, tattoo and acne sticker sheets to allow for customization.

I get the whole concept of wanting a more realistic looking doll on the market, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with it.

There was nothing wrong with Barbie to begin with. Sure, she really likes pink and, yes, she’s not very representative of the average young woman.

However, it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t look like you or me. She’s a doll! She doesn’t have to look realistic.

Truthfully, I don’t think that Barbie is the problem. What’s really the problem here is that parents are too lazy to teach their children what’s right and wrong, what’s healthy and what’s not, what’s real and what’s fiction.

Many of Lammily’s supporters are parents who praise the doll for abolishing the idea of unattainable physical attributes like those that Barbie has. But it shouldn’t be up to a doll to teach their children what a healthy body is and what’s completely fantasized.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that there’s nothing wrong with our beauty industry and culture. It’s a madhouse full of Photoshop and plastic surgery.

But parents these days want easy fixes for life’s problems. They always want to blame the media and their children’s toys for their lack of parenting.

It’s not a company’s job to raise children. Maybe if parents step up to the plate and teach their kids that Barbie is just a doll and isn’t representative of a healthy and realistic woman, we wouldn’t need Lammily.

Megan Mann can be reached at [email protected] or @meganisthemann on Twitter.