Just when you think you've heard everything, a West Virginia lawmaker wants to ban Barbie dolls.

Barbie is celebrating her 50th anniversary this month, and this legislator believes she is a bad influence on girls. He maintains that the doll influences girls to place too much importance on physical beauty at the expense of their intellectual and emotional development and promotes a bad body image.

With government becoming more and more intrusive in our lives, I believe this guy needs counseling before his state devises a toy police, who will enter people's homes and remove the toys it deems unsuitable or potentially dangerous.

Which toys will join Barbie and be targeted for extinction?

Let's begin with my least favorite toy -- Play-Doh. Although it's an inexpensive and creative outlet, it does mess up the house and used to drive me nuts when my kids were little. It seemed to be everywhere, including deep down in the carpets and stuck to the soles of their little shoes. I spent many an hour removing this substance from my daughter's waist-length hair. Once Play-Doh hardens, it's difficult to remove, but to ban it would take away one of childhood's greatest pleasures and motherhood's biggest challenges.

Next on the list of toys to be banned would be Slinky. It's true that Slinky can be dangerous when you're unaware he's descending the stairs the same time as you. But, hey, life is full of potential dangers, and children should learn to cope with them at an early age.

Monopoly might also be doomed to banishment. After all, it influences our children to invest in real estate in the current market, before our government has resolved all its problems.

As the mother of three, I played countless games of Go Fish with my children, sometimes allowing them to win. Probably some well-meaning soul will nix this card game because it encourages gambling.

When I was a kid, my friends and I rode our bikes all over town without the benefit of helmets, knee pads or other protective devices. If you fell and skinned your knee, you got up and continued to ride. There were no legislators lurking in the shadows plotting to ban bicycles. The boys played stickball in the street, and no one banned the game because the stick might give them splinters.

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T&D Correspondent Shirley Upton can be reached by e-mail at writer@ntinet.com. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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