Quote Originally Posted by tulip View Post
I was not allowed to have Barbies, so I went over to my friends to play with hers.

The Barbie itself did not have a negative effect on me. What did, however, is the still present curse of disapproval--the things that I valued as a child were disapproved of by my parents. As a child, that translated into them disapproving of me.

I hope your brother just lets his daughter be.
Yes! My best friend growing up had this same problem. She used to hang out at our house because we 'could do anything we wanted'...(sort of!) and would dread when it was time to go home. Even as a small child, that seemed wrong to me.