There’s a Cabbage Patch Kids birth centre. And it’s even weirder than it sounds
We’ve just discovered there is a Cabbage Patch Kid birth centre, and yes, it is totally bonkers, but also kinda cool!
Babyland General Hospital exists
The birthing centre for 80’s dolls with the fabric button noses – and yes, I said ‘birthing centre’, not toy shop – is located in Cleveland, Georgia.
The Victorian-style mansion-come-hospital for dolls, sits on a sprawling 650 acres and proudly displays a Cabbage Patch Kids sign.
It. Is. Real, people.
See?
All scrubbed up
As if it’s not strange enough that a birthing suite for dolls exists, when you find out what happens at this ‘hospital’ it just gets weirder.
Firstly, the staff at Babyland General greet visitors dressed in scrubs. They are all playing the part of nurses and doctors and take their roles very seriously.
After signing in – and if you happen to be a child bringing your own Cabbage Patch Kid for a visit, then you need to sign them in too, because this is a serious hospital and everyone needs to be accounted for – you can begin your tour of the premises.
Each room in the hospital is themed.
As well as there being a premature babies room with dolls hooked up to IV drips, or sleeping in incubators (because back in the 80’s some marketing genius thought it was appropriate to manufacture a line of fragile premature Cabbage Patch Kids for us to play with … go figure!), there’s a classroom with little desks for the dolls to sit at, a playground for them to have fun on swings and slippery dips, and a cafeteria for them to eat lunch at.
While on the one hand, Babyland General is just pretend play on an epic scale (the nurses in the preemie room cradle and even soothe the babies in their soft southern accents – “Hush now, little darlin”), that really, all tots would relish – I mean, it’s a hospital for dolls! But it’s also a little too strange.
When we found out there’s a Mother Tree that delivers the dolls – you watch this this during the ‘birthing show’ – from what we can only imagine is her tree vagina, we were scratching our heads a little as to how this place still exists, long after the Cabbage Patch craze has died.
More reads about dolls:
- These beautiful wicker doll’s prams win the internet today!
- This is what I really think when I see my boys playing with dolls
- Educational or plain wrong? People are freaking out over this pregnant doll
Tree of life
As for the Mother Tree, or rather Mother Cabbage, she is the grand attraction at Babyland General and is surrounded by the Cabbage Patch Kids she has just ‘birthed’.
You can walk around this queen cabbage and see all her fresh newborns. All the dolls are up for adoption (can be bought) and visitors simply pick the one they want – and then put off having the birds and bees talk for another year because the whole experience has completely confused the subject of where babies come from!
Sure, it’s weird but it also looks fun!
As odd as Babyland General Hospital is, I have to admit my youngest son would love it.
At three, he’s right into pretend play right now. At the moment, he likes to pretend he’s a dinosaur mummy who takes care of her babies; sometime they are hatched and other times she carries her eggs around the house in an Easter basket. He exists in a make-believe world and it’s so lovely to watch, and also participate in.
And maybe this is all Babyland General is meant to be?