A friend just had a baby and the Little Guy, underweight, spent a few days in the neonatal intensive care unit. Another friend suggested that she get him an Ookie Doll, a little ribbon-trimmed cotton blanket that’s tied at the corners to shape a head and hands. A mother sleeps with it and then sets it in her baby’s crib so that he’ll have her scent. It’s the loveliest idea, a simple, natural way to connect mothers and babies who can’t be together. But the doll couldn’t have a more sinister aspect. With its hooded face and cloaked body it looks like a little klansman. Even its name, derived from the Dutch word for “little one,” is troubling; it sounds like baby-speak for the letter “K.”
In the 1950’s psychologist Harry Harlow carried out now-famous attachment experiments with baby monkeys, taking them away from their mothers and setting them in cages with surrogate mother dolls, some made from wire and some from towels. Those macaques with the towel “mothers” cuddled with them frequently and turned to them when frightened. These dolls were made simply, from rolled bath towels and golf-ball-sized plastic heads. Their eyes, mouth and nose were rendered so crudely, with buttons, it’s hard to believe the monkeys recognized them as faces. What, apparently, gave comfort was the soft bundle for them to cling to. So there has got to be a better way to make a bonding device for babies than the Ookie Doll. Give them a doll that looks likes like a real person, or just give them a scrap of cloth.
