Your Barbie will show you who you are

When I was a child, I had a Barbie and Ken doll, they lived in a big pink house with a swimming pool and a terrace. Each person played Barbie in their own way: someone played out love scenes, someone changed the dolls into different dresses, cut their hair, and someone taught them to swim in the bathtub. I had one favorite game that very clearly defines my psychotype: my dolls climbed on the piano.

The point of the game was that Barbie and Ken would end up on the floor at the foot of a mountain – that mountain was my wooden piano. They had a goal – to conquer the top and climb to the very top, where there was usually a metronome and notes. The two puppets were a team, it was difficult for them to move to the top and they could only conquer the levels together, helping each other. It was impossible to climb the piano alone.

On the way, Barbie and Ken would fight, one of them would refuse to go on or turn off the path. They would start talking, and Ken would convince Barbie to stay and keep climbing. Sometimes Barbie was the lead piano climber and gave Ken a hand from the top, and sometimes Ken was more agile and climbed first so he could help Barbie later. There were also setbacks along the way – insurmountable obstacles where you had to get smart and figure out how to get to a new point.

I could play this game for hours, day after day. And it was fun and interesting for me every time. And I liked to play alone, playing either Ken or Barbie. If my friends came, we did not play this game, but built lego, played mother-daughter with big dolls or drew paper clothes for cardboard dolls. In rainy weather we played Scrabble and drank tea with bagels.

What is interesting – this game of Barbie in my early childhood showed me what I would do in life, what kind of character I had, what kind of relationship I would have with my boyfriend. Challenging myself – I take on difficult tasks, take risks, guess how to pass obstacles. My boyfriend is my friend and partner, we go through life together and help each other in business. In some ways he is stronger, in some ways I am. And together we are a team. We walk a lot, conquer mountain peaks, hiking and trekking.

Did the way you play Barbie and who you are in life coincide?