Too real for the toy chest?

The ads have started; Christmas is just around the corner and one new one toy in particular seems to have attracted special attention.

This is an ordinary looking doll that makes the sounds, but what’s different is that it comes with a special halter top that a little girl can put on, to provide the other half of the nutritional transaction.

It’s called The Breast Milk Baby: no actual milk, just a sound effect. It’s a big success in Europe, not selling very well here. The folks on the O’Reilly Factor were certainly having none of it:

“I think it forces girls to grow up to quickly and I think that it glamorizes the notion of having a baby,” said one commentator.

There’s something about breast feeding that just creeps out Americans. Remember the TIME cover of the mom breastfeeding her 4-year-old? And the whole issue of attachment parenting:

“Breastfeeding is the ideal nutrition. To me its the empowering feminist act,” said Mayim Bialik, Blossom, or Amy on Big Bang Theory.

That’s what I think is the real fear. Not just that girls will grow up too fast, but they’ll grow too fast into breastfeeding militants.

I realize evolution designed the female breast to sell video games and Sports Illustrated. But the company that makes Breast Milk Baby says it’s just trying to teach nurturing skills. Maybe even provide a little dose of reality. Although in this version of reality, breasts are actually little plastic blossoms.

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Listen: Dori Monson spoke with the toy manufacturer last April