Simplicity Parenting (13 page)

Let me illustrate the concept with a few stories. It seems there was a study done (proving the theory that in academia, the stranger the study, the greater the funding) that looked at the amount of “violence” that poor Barbie has suffered over the years. The question behind the study is one I think most parents can attest to: Why are there so many “Barbie parts” per square inch of your average sandbox or toy pile? Why has poor Barbie so often lost her head, or a limb, in service to her owner? Why is she being treated so unkindly? Is this an unconscious, feminist, politically correct statement on the part of our young daughters? Who knows, that might be part of it. After all, Barbie looks like nobody any of us knows.

But more to the point, I believe, is that Barbie and Ken are pretty finished pieces of work, to say the least. They can be dressed differently, and changed superficially, but their expressions, their bodies, their “images” are fairly fixed. Compared with a simple doll, one that can be cuddled, and transformed through play. Barbie does not invite much emotional investment from a child. Toys that are very fixed or conceptually complex usually—not always, but usually—get either left or pulled apart. As you excavate the toy pile, I think you’ll find that there is often a lot of collateral damage done to these fixed toys. The less emotional investment they invite, the more damage they sustain.

The toys that endure, in reality and in our memory, are often the simplest ones. The less they do, the more they can become, in play. When you think back to the toys you treasured, the ones you might still have as an adult, they are often quite elemental. Granted, fully digitalized robotic dinosaurs didn’t exist when you were a kid (or, speaking for myself, when I was a kid), but even within the range of your childhood (from stuffed bears to plastic ovens), the toys you remember are probably from the simpler side of the spectrum.

In the 1970s, architect Simon Nicholson wrote about his “Theory of Loose Parts,” which is sometimes cited now in the design of play spaces and structures for children. What he noted was that the degree of creativity and inventiveness possible in any environment relates to the kind of variables in it. In other words, in play children use what they can move, and what they can transform with their imagination. In nature, the rock pulled up from the streambed becomes a mountain, the pile of sticks becomes a house. The creativity is not in the things themselves, it is the force with which children move, imagine, and design with them. This flexibility is the difference between fixed toys and open-ended toys.

Isn’t it interesting that the thrust of most toy companies now is not toward flexibility, but toward more complex and technological toys? In noting how toys and gadgets are merging,
The New York Times
reported that such companies as Fisher-Price, WowWee, Hasbro, Razor USA, and others, in response to faltering toy sales in recent years, have responded with more and more high-tech toys.
⁷
One reason for this is “age compression.” Many companies that market to children have decided not to promote their products simply to the age group for which they are intended or appropriate. Arguing that kids are maturing faster these days (KAGOY, a marketing industry term, means Kids Are Getting Older Younger), they reach down to younger and younger kids, hoping to expand their markets, hoping to pull a child along faster, commercially if not developmentally.
⁸
Children (especially girls) as young as six are now being targeted for tween products. “We are definitely seeing a trend in young girls as young as 8 or 10 years old receiving their first cellphones,” said Jeff Nuzzi, director of global marketing for THQ Wireless. “We like to call it the mobile rite of passage.”
⁹

The trend toward more high-tech toys speaks to the presumed need for more and more stimulation to hold a child’s attention. This notion has been sold to us so aggressively not by any one advertisement, but by the cumulative whole. It is the endgame of the commercialization of play. It asserts that play requires products, and that parents must constantly increase the quantity and complexity of toys to capture their children’s attention. In a world as sped-up and hypercharged as our own, surely the last thing our children need is more stimulation.

Yet the siren song of the “industry of play” is catchy, and alluring: “This incredibly complicated, high-tech toy has it all. It is the one that will hold your child’s attention.
This
is the one.” Sadly, I see how many parents have unconsciously, yet wholeheartedly, accepted this idea, continually buying the toy of the moment. It can become an addiction, both for the givers and receivers.

This is a paradigm shift, and as such, it seems counterintuitive. We’ve been told to think, and move, in another direction for so long.
And toys are just one analogy, one part of a different way of thinking about children and their needs. By simplifying the number and complexity of our children’s toys, we give them liberty to build their own imaginary worlds. When children are not being told what to want, and what to imagine, they can learn to follow their own interests, to trust their own emerging voices. They can discover what genuinely speaks to them.

As you simplify, you allow children to pour their attention, and themselves, into what they are doing. When they’re not overwhelmed with so many toys, kids can more fully engage with the ones that they have. And when the toy is simpler, children can bring more of themselves to that engagement. There is freedom with less: freedom to attend, engage, and absorb. Toys that don’t do things can become anything, in play. When we don’t try to fill children’s minds and toy chests with prefabricated examples of “imagination,” they have more freedom to forge their own, to bring their own ideas into play.

Our parental roles are simplified, too, when the world of play is realigned with kids rather than consumerism. When we refute the notion that our child’s development is a race we have to win, and that their imagination is for sale, we step off a consumer treadmill. Our kids gain time and freedom to more deeply explore their worlds, and we are liberated from a false sense of responsibility and control. Rather than providing the newest in an unending list of “must-have” toys, our generous impulses can be harnessed to provide in simpler, more powerful ways. We can provide for our children by safeguarding their time and opportunities for open-ended imaginative play.

Getting Started: The Discard Pile

So, the primary push in simplifying toys is to reduce the quantity and complexity of your child’s playthings. Here is a checklist to keep in mind as you dig your way through the pile, deciding which to discard. Remember, you are the final arbiter; this list is simply a guideline. Whether you embrace the ideas behind it or not, the list may at least give you food for thought. Even if you follow your own criteria, your goal will hopefully be a much smaller pile in the end. Those toys that are not discarded may be divided into keepers that will find a place in the room, and others that will be put into storage, and may later be “recycled” into the room as others are “recycled out.”

10-Point Checklist of Toys Without “Staying Power”

1. BROKEN TOYS
   

   Large or small, old or new, unless it is among the handful of dearest toys, if it’s broken, toss it. Include in this category the ones that “you’ll fix as soon as you call or write the manufacturer and get replacement parts.” If it is truly dear, and you can fix it or get it fixed, consider keeping it, but remove it until it’s repaired.
   

2. DEVELOPMENTALLY INAPPROPRIATE TOYS
   

   You don’t want toys that your child will “grow into” in a few years. As you go through the toy pile you’ll notice that the simpler, more basic toys have a longer developmental life. A solidly built dump truck can be played with for years and years; the same applies to a beloved doll. Most toys, though, especially those tied to something specific—a character, television show, age range—have built-in “expiration dates.” Prune toys as regularly as you streamline clothes. As with clothes, give the toys your child has outgrown to parents of a younger child. This helps you simplify, and helps others break the cycle of consumerism. If you’re sentimental about some of those dear old toys, you can keep them for yourself, in storage, but don’t “store” them indefinitely in your child’s mix of keepers.
   

3. CONCEPTUALLY “FIXED” TOYS
   

   So many toys in the average toy pile are detailed, molded plastic characters from movies, comic books, or television shows. Ninety-seven percent of American children six or under have products based on TV shows or movies.
   ¹⁰
   They may evoke memories of the original entertainment that inspired them. They may also point down a road of commercial possibilities, with more and newer products, “sequels of stuff.” Taken together, though, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle next to Darth Vader next to Hannah Montana next to Dora the Explorer, all beg the question: Whose imagination is being celebrated: Hollywood’s or the child’s?
   

4. TOYS THAT “DO TOO MUCH” AND BREAK TOO EASILY
   

   Chances are, the exploding lunar rocket that shoots flames and collects rock samples no longer does either. These specialized functions are prone to mechanical failure. And like other very fixed toys, the rocket doesn’t tend to morph into anything else in play. Its own rigid concept takes the place of, rather than inviting, the child’s imagination.
   

5. VERY HIGH-STIMULATION TOYS
   

   The toys that strive to re-create a video arcade experience—complete with flashing lights, mechanical voices, speed, and sound effects—set the “stimulation bar” very high for your child. They are designed to entertain, and, like adult-sanctioned jolts of espresso, to “excite.” My issue with these toys is that they add to a frenetic, cumulative whole. So many things children experience today come with a rush of adrenaline. From increasingly in-your-face advertising and programming, movies designed for sensory overload, children’s increased access to adult news and media … many aspects of a child’s daily life have been “dialed up” several notches.
   

   Frequent bursts of adrenaline will also increase the cortisol levels in your child’s system, which are slower to build but also much slower to decrease. These hormones don’t differentiate between real and simulated stress. And the physiological effects of consistently elevated hormone levels are the same regardless of what triggers their release: so-called “entertainment,” or real danger.
   

   When children are seen less as impressionable beings to protect, and more as a gold mine of a market to exploit, the competition for their attention is fierce. Advertisers feel the need to scream to be heard. Add to this the prevailing assumption that greater and greater levels of stimulation are necessary to hold a child’s attention. In a world as hyperkinetic as ours, why would we need to “entertain” or “stimulate”? Why willingly hijack a child’s equilibrium? Individually, are these toys damaging? Is a roller coaster ride? No, but I believe we are seeing the effects of children whose nervous systems have been calibrated to “high”—the new “normal”—as a result of so much collective, daily sensory stimulation.
   

6. ANNOYING OR OFFENSIVE TOYS
   

   As you can see, some toys will fit a number of these categories. Even if these aren’t high-stimulation toys (and they often are), they’re toys that offend the senses in some way. They are often “favorite uncle toys,” purchased by someone who doesn’t have children, or who knows that they’ll only be visiting for a short time. They make an awful noise, or project an offensive attitude, or they may be quite simply ugly. Toys that are truly offensive to the parents, but not the child, still qualify as chuckable. Early childhood is a period of exploration and sensory development. Toys that feel good and are made of natural materials invite exploration. With the prevalence of cheap, plastic toys on the market, it is easy to gather dozens and dozens of them without much effort. However, when divesting your home of toy and clutter overload, you
   can
   be selective. Consider the sensory and aesthetic beauty of those you keep.
   

7. TOYS THAT CLAIM TO GIVE YOUR CHILD A DEVELOPMENTAL EDGE
   

   This or that remarkable new toy will not make your child more creative, socially adept, or smarter, despite all the claims its manufacturer makes. Once we reclaim our child’s creativity, and the wonders of their developmental growth as intrinsic—internal, and theirs alone!—we, and they, will be freer. As parents we won’t feel so pressured to “exercise” and “supplement” what they are naturally driven to develop. And children will have “play” back, as their rightful domain, rather than simply having tickets to our culture’s commercialized version of play. If you feel pressured as a parent to buy a toy because you fear that without it your child will “fall behind” or not “measure up” to other kids his or her age, chances are it is not a toy you want to buy. I’m not suggesting that such a toy might be harmful; I’m suggesting that thinking about toys in this way can be. Not only is it an expensive, slippery slope that can lead to overload, it also derails “play.” Play is not a race. It is not an advancement opportunity.
   

8. TOYS YOU ARE PRESSURED TO BUY
   

   Are you a victim of “pester power”? Most parents are, at one point or another. A study noted that the average number of requests a child made for something was eight, but 11 percent of the kids surveyed admitted to asking for something they wanted
   more than fifty times.
   ¹¹
   If you see this “something” in your child’s toy pile, you’ve already given into the pressure. Isn’t it helpful, though, to see these much-desired toys now buried and forgotten? It can remind us that we are all—children and parents alike—victimized by such aggressive marketing. You can put a stop to it in your home by limiting your children’s exposure to advertising, and by not taking the bait.
   

   Some toy companies offer children incentives to keep them involved with their brand. Like “pyramid schemes” for kids, these toys come with access to a website that offers kids games with points, and rewards that they can accrue. Children are encouraged to “invite your friends!” to the site and are thus drafted into the company’s viral marketing plan.
   

   Included in this category are “fad” toys. These are the ones that play on your child’s fear of not having “what everyone else has.” It can be difficult to say no, but the difficulty, believe me, is temporary. Fads are self-regulating; they fade out quickly. And in no time a new toy will be the one to have. Parents who give in to fads have to keep up with each new one; those who hop off that train don’t. As a child grows into adolescence, not only will peer pressure increase, so will the prices of the latest “must-have” gadget. And while individual instances or occasional indulgences in this competition (for that is what it is) may be harmless, cumulatively such a path can erode a child’s sense of morality, their view of what’s important in life. The longer you play along with the “keeping up” and “one-up” game, the more difficult it can be to stop.
   

   Soon after my eldest daughter turned eight, one of her friends got a very expensive, much-admired doll as a present. In the months that followed, several other girls also got these dolls. These pricey dolls would easily fit into the “fad” category, but I include them here since they changed the dynamics of play between girls who had been friends for years. For a while all was well. Play didn’t focus exclusively on the dolls, and there was sharing within the group. However, soon the once-harmonious social mix of six girls was seriously split between the “haves” and “have-nots” with anger, hurt feelings, jealousies, and conflicting loyalties circulating like a swarm of bees among them.
   

   A couple of us parents of the “have-not” girls spoke to one another. Together we confirmed that whether we could or could not afford these expensive dolls, we would not give in to the pressure. In a week or two we noticed that the hurt feelings had cleared. The “have-not” girls had moved on, involved and engaged in other things. The “have” girls were feeling somewhat isolated in their exclusive play with the dolls. They began to seek out the others, interested once again in the larger group, what was happening, and what they were missing.
   

9. TOYS THAT INSPIRE CORROSIVE PLAY
   

   Many parents assume that this refers only to “guns” or weapons. Actually, any kind of toy can sometimes inspire play that isn’t joyous, or even pleasant. This is a “you know it when you see it” category. To address guns first, though, it’s clear that boys will often make sticks or any manner of things into play weapons. That doesn’t concern me so long as the weapons are imaginary, and the play does not physically harm anyone. However, fully detailed plastic assault rifles are a step beyond. Even if they don’t actually shoot, in their specificity and detailed singularity they seem to condone and even glorify violence. You may find studies to support either side of this issue, but I personally have no doubt that violent video games, movies, and television shows also negatively affect a child’s play, and their interactions with others.
   

10. TOY MULTIPLES
    

    Do you remember the story of the sorcerer’s apprentice? The sorcerer’s young apprentice, left to tidy up the workshop, soon tires of fetching water and mopping the floor. Using magic he is not fully in charge of, he conjures up many brooms to do the work for him. Soon, however, he is surrounded by these madly sweeping brooms, pails, and water. The rising tide of water threatens to drown him. The same thing can happen with toys. They can multiply, seemingly by magic. Let’s say your child has a favorite stuffed elephant who sits in a place of pride on the bed when it is not being hauled about. You and your spouse and any family member who sees this human/elephant love story can be inspired to re-create it by purchasing stuffed elephant siblings, other jungle animal cousins, or stuffed “friends” of every kind. Soon the bed is covered with them. There are too many to carry around, or properly “care for” with the occasional cooling dust bath or invitation to tea. Names have been dispensed with, and the original elephant looks a bit threadbare suddenly, surrounded by so many new, robust but unhugged companions.
    

    You are going to have more than a few blocks and balls, multiple crayons, doll clothes, and games. In fact, there will be plenty of “multiples” in your child’s mix of toys. However, if one speedy race car is a delight, that does not mean that three of them will be delight cubed. If your child has many versions, or copies, of the same toy, consider reducing the number to a more manageable and lovable little group. This is especially important if the original toy (not the “clones”) is one your child has imbued with special affection and loyalty. Our best intentions to increase the circle of love surrounding our child can have the opposite effect. By overwhelming a true connection with too many superfluous ones, we can send a message that relationships are disposable.