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Toys and Why Childhood Hurts 11/9/12
Howdy y'all! It's getting near the most over-sold time of the year and I JUST SAW my 1st 2012 Christmas commercial! Hooray! Oh friggin' happy happy joy joy!!! So let's address the usual "BIG" issue - toy safety...
Those of you who LOVE Der Nanny State und Der Union of German Workers Party - (NAZI BASTARDS) will HATE this blog.
Toys are constantly being tested, tried, TOYED with, played with... you get the picture. The powers that be tell us toys need be a certain style, size, color, shape, and more.
No one should choke, bleed, hurt or die from toy usage. OK?? Well, the problem is, you remove all the FUN from toys if you make them so safe. Childhood is about exploration, it is about building character, it is about MODIFICATION, it is about cuts, bruises, sprains, breaks and tears...
I have a large number of younger readers (age 30 or less). I'm so incredibly sorry you all missed out on the joys of erector sets, Tyco train transformers (BZZZZT!), metal playgrounds, banana boards, sugary drinks maker machines, Holly Hobby ovens (for shame! INCANDESCENT LIGHTBULB POWER!), lead painted toys, pewter D&D figures, metal action figures, and so MUCH MORE!!
Nowadays, you can't accidentally swallow a toy, but if you do, it's biodegradable and probably digestible. When my friends and I played, we had real wood or steel swords. Erector set pieces worked as daggers and armor. You could light a cig off a Holly Hobby as it 'baked' and blame the smoke on overcooked H.H. cakes & cookies.
Attaching one's younger siblings or club pledges to the TYCO transformer and turning the dial until you couldn't take any more was incredibly fun, brave and made you top dog if you 'made it' longest (my brother won hands down, FYI).
Breaking/skinning knuckles, fingers, knees, elbows, ankles and toes was a RITE OF PASSAGE. You either MASTERED the banana board or you didn't. It built character like nothing else to be able to kick off your board, run over the top of the car in your way and catch/land on your board on the other side. Only the BEST could do it. I did. Often. Pissed off lots of neighbors too: taught you how to skate or run REALLY FAST when old Mr. Snodgrass would chase you up the street if you left footprints on his Lincoln!
Today's toys are safe, useless, dull and soft. It's no wonder kids have issues. They are forced to live in a padded bubble from hell. I feel sorry for modern kids.
There's no challenge, no fear, no adventure. Life is sanitized. We need free range children and the toys to go along with it. Doubt me? Look at how many kids prior to 1980 were "well-adjusted" as compared to now!
Betcha I can outlast ALL of you on the Tyco!
Andy
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Replies (1)
I'm right there with you. I was born in '81, in a nice green place just outside of London, and I remember Other Kate over the road and I sneaking up into the woods behind her back fence to pick blackberries, alone and unsupervised - and also a boy named Stephen hitting me in the head with a plastic toy hammer and making me bleed, but that's another story.
But then things changed. They took our school climbing frame away because Andrea C. fell off it and broke her arm - but she was hanging off it by her feet, not exactly sensible usage! We weren't allowed snapping bracelets because the metal could work through and cut us. We weren't allowed to play British Bulldog because a girl called Victoria ran into a stone wall head-first and knocked herself out (again, her own fault)!
It's all very sad.