As we are trying to start a family, my mind has drifted towards some of the feelings I have when I encounter the little children of my friends and family. I think about how I loathe the prospect of having a house filled with baby toys... the sounds, songs, and mere appearance of these baby toys defeats me... and why must they?
What toys do I remember? I remember Hungry Hungry Hippos. Noisy little beast, but I totally enjoyed it... for about fifteen minutes. Then, it was old news. But we would revisit this game from time to time. I remember GI Joes. I loved them. I had a ton of them... but honestly, I didn't do much with them. I remember feeling good when I got to buy one and add it to my collection. But again, I didn't do much with them. Why had I wanted them? As a kid, it felt good to get material things that were "mine". Same for the Micro-Machines. Littler versions of matchbox cars. I spent my entire life not needing them, but one day I saw the TV commercial with the really fast speaking guy telling about Micro-Machines... I HAD to have them! I ended up collecting more than forty. But again, I didn't really play with them... at all! I collected them, organized them. Like a hoarder in training, I lined them up on my dresser. Put them in a tackle box and took them to school. Some of the other boys did too. We compared our stock piles. They were our status symbols. They were the Gucci purses or Porsches of childhood. I felt pride in my material accumulation. I felt jealousy about the ones my friends had that were missing from my collection. I must get them!
Did I have such toys when I was knee high to a knee? Perhaps, but I don't remember most of them. What do I remember? I remember when I was tiny, sitting on the floor with my dad, my feet to his feet, legs making a sort of an arena in which we simply rolled a ball back and forth to one another. For some reason, to my three year old baby brain, this was amazing! I loved it. As I remember, it felt like every evening we did this. And every evening, I loved it.
Some of the other things I loved from my early childhood: flying kites, the kite seemed to reach the clouds! Playing with adult things. You name it... It was exciting to me... Keys. Clothes. Little packages of rolled up shoe laces in a tackle box in my dad's closet. The motorized shoe polisher in my grandfather's closet. Even a plastic shoe horn was a wonder to behold... I also remember the magical day when my dad brought out his classical guitar! I could sit strumming his guitar, making those horrible combinations of notes, with a sense of wonder.
I also remembered what my sister and I did to play. It wasn't so much playing with toys that make up my fond memories. It was inventing games. "Outball" was one such game. It involved various containers placed in strategic locations along the staircase. Leslie had figured out the point system. As we rolled the ball down the stairs, we got different points for which box or bowl the ball got trapped in during its descent.
I have many memories of building things. Being creative. Forts from couch cushions, sheets, tape, card tables, and TV trays. Then you crawl around inside the labrynth of a fort. This kept us busy for hours. Or making art with glue and glitter on paper. Model cars or balsa planes that would fly.
This is human nature isn't it? Materialism. The worship of wealth and accumulation of "things". The one with the most toys when they die, wins... Right? Wrong. What if this "human nature" gets kickstarted as a toddler. What if the brain chemistry is set up by our parents actions? We get things, its an expression of our parent's love for us. They act excited as they give us these plastic noisemakers.
The actions say, Its your birthday, we celebrate you, you are important so we buy you toys! Does our young brain flip it and say, if I have more shiny things... Then I know I am of value? Shiny things is what makes us happy.
Even if that's not the case... If it's just the excitement of having something new and shiny... The luster still fades. And it fades quickly. Now, my noisemaker isn't exciting anymore. I tried it out. It made noise. Now, its boring. I want a new plastic noisemaker!!! Maybe my 3 year old life would have been complete if I just had a better noisemaker! Mom, Don't you love me? Buy me a new noisemaker! If you love me you'd buy one! I have to have it or I'll die!
I suggested to my wife, that one day when we have kids... maybe we don't need to buy all these toys. Many of my friend's who are parents reinforce my thought. "He loves ribbons and spatulas." "They love to build forts with cardboard and masking tape." "They love to make things with legos." "He just wants me to read him books all the time."
Well, I do remember one toy I loved.... legos. I don't know if they fall into the same category as "toys"... They are a substrate for the imagination. Building blocks of endless combinations of things. They are small colored versions of cardboard and tape. Kids seem to have such natural imagination... Maybe we should facilitate the flexing of their imaginations! Kids are little creators. Did God not say man was created in his image? He is THE creator. We are meant to create too. But much of our current culture does not encourage creativity... It stifles it and promoted conformity. Turn off the imagination and watch TV. Turn off the imagination and play video games. You will be excluded unless you look like the girls in the magazines. You are not worth much as a boy unless you are tough and emulate sports stars and bang chicks when you're fourteen.
I hear parents say things like, "It feels good to see the kids get so excited when they open presents." So, is that really what is best for them? Or are we teaching our kids materialism and wealth hording so we can feel good for a brief moment? If it's truly better to give than to receive... Why don't we emphasize giving to those in need. What if we taught our kids to give at Christmas. "It feels so good to see the kids get so excited to give toys to the needy on Christmas!"
Isn't that a better message?
David
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