Are kids’ toys getting too, well … hot? The TODAY show seems to think so, saying that some parents are upset at the latest versions of some old favorites. Tinker Bell has boobs and a come-hither look. Rainbow Brite and Strawberry Shortcake aren’t little girls anymore. Even Trollz are showing some fashion sense and a little thigh.

“When we have these ridiculous models — sexualized children, and horses with long eyelashes that are flirtatious and all of that — it sets up this ideal of beauty and body image that kids have to pay attention to because they can’t not pay attention to it. And they feel less good as they’re trying to develop a good sense about their own bodies,” says Dale Atkins, a psychologist and TODAY show contributor. "The sexualized aspect just makes them feel like they're only good if they are objectified. ... And it's all so subtle, for a child anyway. We parents and adults look at this and say, 'Oh my gosh, this is so blatant, but in fact it's subtle because kids are playing with these things and then they look in the mirror.”

And of course that makes us want to agree entirely, right away, because no person in their right mind wants to sexualize children or set girls up to be chronically unhappy at failing to measure up to some idealized standard of beauty foisted on them before they’re old enough to even understand what is happening to them.

But we also wonder, at the same time, if this is really something that is getting worse, fairy princesses having been around for a very long time. There are more toys than ever, many of which promote diversity, celebrate being “different” and send presumably entirely acceptable subliminal messages to kids. Parents, in the end, make these choices. They can hardly be unaware, in this day and age, of what they’re doing.

We think maybe TODAY is going a little overboard, while at the same time respecting that they’ve raised (again) a legitimate issue. We recognize that this opinion may put us in the minority—according to an online poll running with the story, about 87 percent are saying “I wouldn’t want my kids playing with some of these toys.”

But if that’s the case—who’s buying them?

We’d like to hear from some of the moms and dads in our community on this one, we really would.