I’d never heard of the Reborn subculture before, which was detailed in a recent photoessay in the New York Times. Women who are part of this culture (movement? hobby?) — aficcionados are mostly white, conservative, Christian, and antiabortion women — make and collect eerily lifelike dolls. They purchase their dolls from “nurseries” and host baby showers, compete in beauty contests, and attend Reborn conventions. They can spend thousands on these dolls, which they often treat as members of their own family, giving them rooms in their house, taking them out to eat, and generally caring for them as one would a living baby.

This is gut twistingly strange and heartbreaking to me.

My first reaction: “These women are weirdos. This ...