The dolls, or “reborns”, are made by Jaime Eaton, a sunny young mother of four who said that after four Caesareans, this would be the “closest” she would get to having more children. “I’ve cried when I’ve let a few of them go,” she admitted. We watched her put a baking tray of rubber baby parts in the oven. You could have anything you liked, she said, a wriggling baby, one with raised capillaries, birthmarks. Her own children bashed each other with sundry infant body parts and seemed unperturbed at sharing their home with these grotesques.
One lady, Sue, had quite a few reborns in a spookily beautifully kitted-out nursery. She couldn’t do with the noise of the real thing: “I want them well behaved and clean and the reality isn’t like that,” she said. She took her “children” for walks and even had a bottleholder for their formula (fabric conditioner, not milk). She spent nearly £300 on clothes for a new baby, Sophie, who she travelled to America to pick up. (I know, mouth still open.) But Sophie had a crack in her head – she wasn’t perfect. Sue sent her back. (Mouth still open, eyes now swivelling.)
Not my thing at all.
