Children's play often imitates the activities of adults in the real world, and the playthings children use often mirror-in a smaller scale but quite accurately-the world their parents inhabit. Most children, especially girls, used dolls to imitate their mother's child-care and nurturing activities. The accessories of child care, like highchairs and low chairs, cradles and beds, dressers and cabinets, and carriages and strollers, make the play more like Mother's work and more authentic. Parents liked doll furniture and other accessories of doll play because these materials goods not only taught children valuable lessons but documented the family's prosperity and the parents' abiding affection for their offspring.