Today we went shopping for you. We got some room decorations and some stuff to make mommy more comfortable. And her comfort really does impact your well being so there you go. While we were out, we looked at a bunch of stuff. I even picked out your, hopefully, stroller. It is very cool and not to girly for me to push around. But, while looking at the toys I came to a realization. Baby stuff is certainly a lot cooler than when I was a kid. However, I do not think it is better. I want you to have the latest and the coolest thing. I want you to have the giant dinosaur, even though you are girls, because it is awesome. But some of the new toys frighten me. There is just too much going on. ADD and ADHD are on the rise in this country. Could this be to over stimulation of kids, especially babies? I tend to think so. It also leads me to believe that as a people, we give less of a shit about our kids. It seems like the answer for so many people is to throw more stuff at the child until it shuts up. Now, I do not have you yet so I am not going to pretend that I get "it" right now. But to me, it seems like there are a lot of people that have kids as an accessory rather than as someone they care about. To me, most of the products scream look, you don't even have to parent your child. This wonderful device will do it for you. And people are OK with that? Why even have the kid? We then wonder why our children have issues with authority and structure and life. We have not given it to them. We have set no boundaries or levels of satisfaction. We have had no involvement. There used to be the complaint that people let TV babysit their child. Now, instead of working to fix that, we have made products that do a better job of it! Baby Einstein my ass. No amount of DVD bullshit can replace human interaction. And I look at these toys and think well shit, there is no hope. But then I see a small section, off to the corner, of toys that encourage thinking instead of doing it for you. Toys that enable you to play and imagine and make a ruckus. Music toys are a perfect example. When I was little, and thank god they still exist, kids got shit they could bang on and make "music". Now, kids can bang on new music toys and the toy plays a pre-recorded song. Where is the creativity? And what message are we sending to kids? That all you have to do is push a button and things are perfect? Well, I say thee nay. You girls will get toys and lots of them. Hell, I got three today as well. But your toys will encourage you to think. Your toys will be classic. You will learn from your toys. And what you learn will be based on what you experience with that toy, not what the script guy came up with. And you will not have toys that jack up the sensory experience. I saw a high chair today and wondered, with all the shit on there, where do I put the food? I saw a jumper that instead of encouraging you to jump and use your legs, encouraged you to interact with things in a 360 degree environment. That is just fuck nuts! You will have tea parties with your stuffed animals and imaginary friends, not an interactive movie. This sounds strong I know, but I feel very strongly about this. I work with kids all day who have no imagination. Kids that get pissed when they have to think. Kids who could not have fun without being told how to do so and that is sad. It is absentee parenting. It is putting your kids in a room with a TV and telling them that they are to watch it all day and not bother them. It is not reading to your kids but instead, using an "interactive" storybook. Interactive has become another way of saying force-fed and I won't allow that in my house. I want my girls to think and imagine and dream. I want your dreams to be fantastic and crazy and silly. But most importantly, I want them to be yours, not a marketing firms.
As a side note, I realize that I used quite a few quotation marks. I apologize because it is lazy writing in my book. But I'm tired so "sue" me.
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