Manila: A Catholic bishop said Filipinos should give books instead of the widely popular pregnant dolls as gifts this Holiday Season, because pregnant dolls give the wrong message that being unmarried and pregnant at the same time is being condoned by gift-givers.
“These preggy dolls are not to be encouraged as Christmas gifts, especially to young people. They do send a wrong message, which is, ‘it’s ok to get pregnant,’” warned Bishop Joel Baylon.
“Pregnancy is never a wonderful thing outside of marriage,” Baylon explained, hinting that the pregnant dolls which are now being sold in Divisoria, Manila’s widely big thrift market, give the impression that it is all about getting pregnant and not getting pregnant for the sake of building a family.
The pregnant dolls are like plastic guns which were frowned upon by moralists for promoting violence on young boys, explained Baylon.
Noting that giving books is a better option this Holiday Season, Baylon said, “Let us encourage our children to return to and appreciate the habit of reading books.”
He lamented that books are now “surely dying — because of the phenomenal influence of the digital world on the young, where visuals rather than words are most attractive and powerful.”
The influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines wields power in the Philippines where majority are Roman Catholics, the rest includes non-Catholic Christians and Muslims of which the majority are based in southern Philippines.
