The Original Mommy Doll

You can search for the following phrases: Mommy Doll by Tootsietoy; Mommy Doll+ Sue Ogden and Cindy Stern and land on articles and photos from the 1990's. Mommy Doll was the brain child of two mom's, myself and New York resident Cindy Stern.  It was a four year project of love and "grit", the phrase dujour that represents hard work and dedication.

Why in 2015 do I need to tell the story? I need to tell the story and bring back a new improved edition of Mommy Doll to celebrate my first grandchild. Afterall, Mommy Doll was launched when Cindy and I studied how our children played with dolls and improvements we could make.

Let the story begin...

I searched for the original People Magazine Article and found it August 7, 1989. Cindy and I sat at my kitchen table and brainstormed about how we could get the message out- we had officially labeled ourselves as Toy/Doll designers. We did not have a business card or an office- we just had four kids under the aged of 8 between the two of us. In my case, my house looked like a bomb hit as I prioritized everything except cleaning up. I loved to buy toys without batteries and just watch to see what my kids would do with the toys. The research was in the observations...

It looks like the article in People Magazine occurred on or around the same time as a feature article in the Chicago Tribune Style section. The photo included the image of my son T that was the inspiration for the new baby face in the Tootsietoy model of the doll.

It looks like a year later, in September 1990- we had a new prototype and we were officially in Time Magazine. It was strategic and someone manipulated- but we decided Cindy would be the "face" of the working mom since she lived in New York and I would be the face of the stay at home mom that had a chicken in the oven and a garden full of flowers. In truth- Cindy laughed when I talked about cooking a whole chicken and said " why would I cook a chicken when I can go downstairs to the Deli and buy one already to eat?" It was a conversation everyday as I described to her what I did in the suburbs with three kids and she told me what she did in the Village. We let the conversation play out in the press- hoping the debate would drive up sales of our dolls. We did not want to exclude any moms.