Today is my son Ethan's first birthday. I can hardly believe that he has already been in our lives for a whole year. The first couple of months (ok, all twelve months) older mothers would always come up to me and say, "Enjoy this time. It all goes by so quickly!" Well this can get annoying when it seems like all you accomplish in a day is changing seven diapers and singing the Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes song twelve times. But looking back it is so true. I'm not sure what all I definitely accomplished in the last year, but somehow my son is healthy and happy!
Several people gave Ethan money or gift certificates to buy toys for his birthday. I can probably count on one hand the number of toys I have actually purchased for my son to date, as he received quite a few things as gifts when he was born. However, he is now outgrowing a lot of the babyish toys and probably needs a few new things to stimulate him. In keeping with my philosophy of good stewardship and minimal clutter, I have in mind to buy him a few good quality items that he will get a lot of use out of. If I could only duplicate the success of the Leapfrog Learn N' Groove Table, by far the most loved toy of the past year, I would be so happy.
Neither my husband or I had stepped foot in a toy store in years, probably decades, so we headed off to Toys R' Us last night, thinking that because it was by far the biggest in our area it must offer the best selection. Well, we both came out totally shocked and dismayed. I am amazed at how many aisles and aisles of total trash can be in one store. Literally every single toy that we saw was made out of junk plastic with junk paint and stickers on them. In short, they looked like they would last about 2 days in the hands of my active, and sometimes destructive, baby.
I can't help but compare the toys that I saw last night to those that I had when I was a kid. While a lot of things were made of plastic, few were made in China. The plastic was a higher quality type, with the colors in the actual plastic rather than applied to the outside in the form of cheap (lead?) paint and stickers. I also had a lot more things made of metal or wood. I had a metal Tonka truck, probably already bought used at a garage sale, that lasted through my whole childhood and my brother's with almost daily play. Similar trucks now are made out of cheap plastic that would likely break within a month. The other interesting this is that prices have not risen much, if at all. You know that there is something wrong if the price of a loaf of bread has doubled in little more than a decade, but the price of a Barbie doll seems to be about the same as it was in 1985.
I know that we are a throw-away, consumerist society, but I refuse to teach those values to my child. Where, oh where, can I get something of high quality? Does anyone in the United States even make toys anymore? For now, I have ordered Ethan one toy, a push and ride, online. The rest of Ethan's money will get tucked away until we find something actually worth owning. From what I saw, that certainly won't be at Toys R' Us anytime soon.
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