Is it just me, or is anyone else sick of fairies? Because personally I am sick to hell of wee folk and their tiresome fantasy ilk -- unicorns with rainbow horns, mermaids with cotton-candy hair, and tarty princesses. Oh, I'm especially sick of the princesses. Is there some unwritten law that princesses have to dress like down-market 1980s bridesmaids? Can't today's little girls take their cue from Camilla Bowles in her classic tweeds?
I know I sound grumpy, but the current fantasy-toy craze is making my job as an eco-mom more challenging. Try finding a poofy ball gown made out of hemp for a 6-year-old girl. Better yet, try this: "Honey, why don't we make a princess costume out of these recycled grocery bags? We can make magic wands out of sticks. It'll be fun, and we'll save the planet, too!"
Nope. Not gonna fly. It's about as much fun as dressing up like Camilla Bowles. And so this is how you end up with a piece of crap.
After the latest poisonous Chinese-toy scare, I went through my daughter's playthings and muttered words familiar to parents everywhere: "Where did all this crap come from?"
Alterna-Toys
Check out our list of eco-toy companies, and add your own suggestions.I could hoist my post-childbirth, sanctimonious eco-ass onto a soapbox and rant about how free trade and its evil proponents let lead-laced bugbears into our homes. But the truth is that we, as consumers, opened the door and carted the crap in ourselves.
Some of our crap was given to my child as gifts, some came unbidden in birthday party gift bags, and some of it I bought. My personal nadir came late one night, just before a holiday, when I bought stuff from the Disney Store. Imagine the red-faced shame of a Whole Foods mom: My bulbs are spiral, my car is a hybrid, and the baby's diapers are chlorine-free. Yet I buy midget-sized plastic pastel pumps (say that three times fast) that will undoubtedly sit in a landfill until the sun goes supernova.
I could blame my generation. If you're a Gen-Xer like me, you probably don't have heirloom toys to pass down to your kids. Your toy memories likely include an assortment of oddball disposable synthetic stuff: Shrinky Dinks, Spirographs, Big Wheels, Slip 'N Slides, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, and the downright freaky Stretch Monster and Baby Alive dolls. (NB: Play was enhanced by a wholesome breakfast of Cap'N Crunch and Tang.) Crap is all we know, so maybe that's why we're so willing to buy fresh batches of it for our kids.
The good news is that every culture has a counterculture, even the Era of Crap Toys. I'm starting to see a resurgence of wooden and higher-quality toys purchased by my parent peers. In Waldorf-y catalogs such as Magic Cabin, you can buy sturdy wooden playthings, and not just retro stuff, either. For instance, you can buy a wooden barbecue grill. Of course, it doesn't actually work -- at least not more than once.
I know all this crap-talk is vulgar, but when it comes to the safety of children it's time to stop mincing words. Not only are most of the 3 billion toys sold in America each year (yes, you read that right) cheaply made and environmentally insensitive, they also, as recent recalls of Chinese toys demonstrate, can pose a real threat to our little ones.
In addition to demanding higher safety standards for toys, maybe we parents should also grapple with the larger existential issues surrounding children and play. What kind of play is best for kids? Structured? Imaginative? Are kids playing enough outside? Do we really need name-brand toys at all? As a recent editorial in The New York Times pointed out, perhaps our daughters don't need "a talking dump truck or Barbie with the Malibu beach house. Let her flail on a saucepan with a wooden spoon. Give her paper and crayons."
I'm on board with the idea of fewer toys. I've vowed to add a fourth R to the wobbly little trinity of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. It's Reject. That's right. Reject crap.
This is going to require some tough love, but I'd rather have a temporarily teary kid than a lead-poisoned kid. Santa and I are going to have to have a serious heart-to-heart chat. Ditto some well-meaning friends and relatives, but I know I'm not alone in this campaign. Recently, I called up another mother and thanked her for sending home a birthday party gift bag that didn't contain a single piece of crap. I detest birthday gift bags, but this one was OK: flower seeds, some cool tumbled rocks, and pencils. My daughter was delighted, and I didn't have to patrol the booty for verboten items.
My new philosophy of rejection also means I'll be buying fewer, higher-quality things. Not luxury things, just better stuff. As the old saying goes, Buy quality and you'll only cry once.
And if I'm really lucky, my kids won't cry at all.
Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things
This Friday, don’t just Buy Nothing—use nothing!
Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots
Comments
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gmpicket Posted 3:00 am
25 Sep 2007
Dad made us wooden toy cars, planes, and trains. And Mom helped us sew dolls and clothes for them. I also designed and sewed my own stuffed animals as a kid. It was enjoyable and creative.
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iprefertherain Posted 3:34 am
25 Sep 2007
All my other toys were plastic, but I remember the camera just being so much more fun. Even my friends thought my camera was the best.
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rosalux Posted 3:12 am
26 Sep 2007
You can't win the goody bag battle, I don't think. You can mostly win the "no i won't buy that" argument. I say mostly because your kid has a line on some other adult. Possibly your own mother, who taught you to say "No I will not buy that ridiculous thing" in exactly that tone of voice. I actually heard a kid in a store say to grandma "No, mom won't let us have a Bratz doll. She'd just take it away." They bought a Barbie instead. I'm not sure that's a win.
I have not managed to win the "don't let my kid drink sugary drinks" battle - his powers of cuteness win out against all adults and half the older kids in the neighborhood, if I'm not watching.
I have managed to convince most family members to only give us random crap if it's pre-owned. I have made both grandmothers admit that they buy toys for their own pleasure, not the grandkids. They have electronics-laden giant plastic things that stay at Grandma's house and we visit. And my stepfather's need to buy beach toys, which I couldn't do anything about, I did manage to limit - my son got the beach toys as a random gift at the beach, and then months later he also got them for his birthday. Same toys. He was happy anyway.
I haven't managed to stop random family friends from buying things for my son. I don't think that one is winnable, either - right now I winnow it down as soon as they're out of the house, but in a few years he'll tattle on me, and I'll lose that battle completely.
And most importantly, I haven't managed to stop my own crap-buying. I limit it by only buying things at garage sales and thrift stores. But it was me who wanted the Sit N Spin. It was me who wanted the toy chainsaw. It was me who "needed" a Playschool pirate ship. He enjoys all those things, but he never asked for them, and they are all made out of plastic. Pre-owned plastic, but plastic.
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zacaroni Posted 4:45 am
26 Sep 2007
I am amazed at the sheer amount of toys that parents will purchase for their children. Even parents who I assumed were very environmentally conscious give in to their kids when they plead for something plastic - which is just what advertisers are trying to create: a culture where children drive the toy market by influencing parents to buy the toy that is cheapest to produce.
Industry should not be blamed, however, for our materialism. The toy industry depends on parents, first and foremost.
We adults are responsible for reinforcing the rich cultural tradition of materialism in our culture, and we pass these values on to our children in ways that we don't even realize. The very traditions we practice celebrate and foster superficial materialism. Our holiday (and birthday) traditions of gift-giving reinforce the idea that we are entitled to gifts, without need or necessity - that simply by our existence we should expect to be showered with wealth. We reward kids by treating them with material gains, instead of rewarding them with appreciation and emotional support. We encourage creativity, but we measure it by "productivity" (what did you paint?) instead of "process" (how did you paint?), and in doing so, validate only acts that result in a gain of material assets.
We are encouraging our children to place importance on objects that characterize the values of the industrial revolution and modern consumerism: convenience, fashion, productivity, and cheapness. We are allowing - through our support and purchase of cheap and fashionable toys - our children to value products which have no value.
As a result, the cultural environment that our children are learning to treasure is one designed according to the specifications of marketing strategies, and not according to the values that we aught to cherish when it comes to our children: creativity, confidence, self-reliance, intelligence, health and understanding. Not only is this detrimental to the development of our younger generations by how it affects values and play, but encourages bad habits in us, the adults, who recognize the environmental and social inadequacies of the industrial mindset.
Of course, we cannot completely shelter our children from the hand of advertising, and inevitably, they will learn through their peers that certain toys are cooler than others. But we are not helpless either. We can start is by recognizing the values that we encourage through our purchasing behavior, and talk with peers and other parents about what we value in toys. As was mentioned above, we should demonstrate for other parents that we do not give in to the pressure to praise kids with cheap gifts - our children and our culture deserve better.
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tsauren Posted 10:33 pm
07 Oct 2007
So my big dilemma is how do you curb that "We have to buy LOTS of Christmas presents behaviour" without hurting anyone's feelings? Previous attempts at limiting battery-operated toys have failed miserably.
My kids are still young enough to love a chocolate chip cookie as much a new plastic toy. I'm trying to hold onto to that for as long as it lasts. After that the conversations begin about choices and consequences of those choices. Big subject matter for young minds, but important in the effort to reduce overall purchases.
So for now, I will try to broach the subject of less toys, more love with the family and see how that goes over.
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