GoTo Mom: The American Girl Store is Coming!

Parents, cover your daughters’ ears.

An American Girl store is coming near you this summer. To Tyson’s Corner by mid-June, to be precise.

Of course, it was bound to happen. We’re told time and time again that the Washington region is one of the wealthiest in the country. We also know that parents in this area have no qualms about hosting lavish birthday parties, graduation celebrations, and coming-of-age bashes regardless of religious or ethnic persuasion.

In short, we don’t hold back when it comes to showering our children with gifts to show them—and everyone around them—how much loving power we have.

So paying over $100 per doll would surprise few of us, and of course, that means buying a few outfits for the dolls that cost about $30 each. And since there’s nothing quite like getting a matching outfit with the doll, that would set us back at least $60 per dress.

As any American Girl patron will tell you, however, these dolls are rather special and can be tools for stimulating interest in U.S. history. There’s one that hails from the days of the American Revolution, and her story is that she lives in Williamsburg with her father, a dry goods shopkeeper on Main Street and her mother and siblings. There are dolls that grew up during the Depression, dolls who are Jewish, dolls who come from divorced families and the like, so girls can choose who they would like to identify with. There are stacks of books and movies that tell their stories, online games and a monthly magazine girls continuously engaged as well.

The crowning glory, though, is the American Girl store.  At its flagship Fifth Avenue location, girls from all over the country flock with their mothers (yes, there are some mothers and the occasional little boy, but they are very much in the minority in this particular patch of New York City) to ogle three floors of merchandise devoted solely to the dolls. Here, you can buy not only clothes and accessories for the dolls, but you can put your companion up at the hospital for any repair she may need, or go to the hair salon to have her locks freshened up. Best of all, there is a salon at the topmost floor where lunch, tea, and dinner is served for girls and their dolls.

So popular is this destination that for the past few years, the city of Gaithersburg has held annual bus tours for girls and their mothers to get up at the crack of dawn for a four-hour ride to Manhattan, browse at the store, and then come back home on the same day.  Not surprisingly for many mothers of elementary school-aged girls, the tours have always sold out.

I actually went to the New York store for the first time with my first-grader this spring, and she still cannot stop talking about the visit. She is convinced that she must have her upcoming birthday party at the tea salon, even though I have warned her that she won’t be able to invite any of her friends since it’s too far away.

Suffice to say that while she may love her friends, she loves the store more and she will willingly sacrifice a day of cake and lots of presents for a few hours in a store that she adores.

Somehow, when the store arrives at Tyson’s, American Girl just won’t be the same for me.

Not having to plan in advance for a trip up to New York and making a weekend out of the shopping and dining experience will make the store lose its luster.

-- GoTo Mom is a fortnightly musing by a Gaithersburg mother of two who is still trying to figure out even after seven years of how to have perfectly behaved children, an adoring husband, and a dream job. She likes to unwind after a day of dealing with realty  with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.