This past holiday season, my 9-year-old asked for a boy doll.
"But not a boy baby doll," she said, "because they're exactly the same as the girl baby dolls when you take the clothes off. They are just girl dolls! Only in blue clothes! Though sometimes they don't have eyelashes. And anyway, I have so many girl dolls and it's just not fair that there aren't boys too."
Can you tell she's my kid?
We did find a rag-style boy doll for her who she absolutely adores; but I admit I wish we had found The Doll Kind a month ago, because I'd have snatched one of their homemade Kindness Dolls right up.
Related: The ultimate birthday gift guide: 300+ of the coolest gifts for kids of all ages.
As with companies like Cuddle & Kind, or most notably, TOMS and Warby Parker, the company has a buy one-donate one model. For every one of their adorably squishy rag dolls -- there are two girls and one boy -- one is donated to a child in need in an orphanage, hospital, or shelter.
But what makes the concept more special is how they get your kids involved.
Each Doll Kind doll comes with 10 tokens marked "pay it forward," that kids can given out as literal tokens of kindness as they see fit.
The website even offers ideas to help spark ideas: Give one to a friend who lost a pet; hand one to another student sitting alone at lunch; give one to a police officer in your neighborhood; give one to your mom to thank her for reading to you at night.
I know how much my daughter would totally obsess -- in a good way -- over who to give them to and for what reason; and also how much she'd appreciate knowing that the cute little boy doll she cuddles at night has a twin being cuddled at that very same moment, by another kid who shares that need for a little extra comfort and love.
Lovely.
Choose from one of three dolls that give back at The Doll Kind and see how they're helping to spread kindness everywhere.
