Poor Einstein

I've been thinking a lot about stuff lately - baby stuff. Particularly, finding the right balance between being well-prepared and outsmarting the baby industry's drive to encourage consumption. We're not too big on stuff at our place. The less we have the less we have to keep clean - the less there is to dust, pick-up, polish and put back in place (and keep the kitties out of or away from) and the less likely it is that we'll be featured on Hoarders. The exceptions of course being plants, shoes and scarves (okay so these are probably more my exceptions than our exceptions).

Reading other blogs and reviews online has been a big help in deciding what works, what doesn't work and what you actually need in those first few months. Last week I made a big list to help dissolve some of the panic that set in any time I ventured into a department store baby section. Do I really need Baby's Learning Laptop? A Light-Up Learning Camera? Despite becoming slightly dizzy over the amount of plastic these toys use, I am amused by their emphasis on learning and the implication that without them your child won't likely make it out of the third grade. Remember the Baby Einstein flop? Poor Einstein.

I can see how the baby industry has become such an unwieldy monster. New parents want to do the right things - to provide and love and nurture - and are nervous (to say the least) about how to go about seeing to these intangibles. I find it helps to think about the childhoods of my parents and their parents and all the generations of exceptional and loving and well-rounded humans who came before and who thrived without the Light-Up Learning Camera. While they didn't get things perfect I don't think any generational shortcomings can be linked to a dearth of eleven-piece pink doctor sets.

Not that I envision Frankie Moon sitting in an empty nursery playing with old tin cans and pieces of rubber. Books are awesome. And blocks and trains and paints and forts. And games and going outside and make believe. I know this sounds lofty but it also sounds like fun!

When Toys Take Over sums things up pretty nicely. I've copied a few excerpts below but the whole thing is a really good read.

Margaret Greentree, who grew up in Norfolk in the 1950s, remembers as a child waiting for a whole year before finally receiving her second-hand bike: "It had flat tires and needed repairing, but it was precious. The ecstasy I felt on receiving it was unsurpassed." Recently, she watched her grandson receive a bike for no particular reason, and she felt sorry for him: "How can he feel the pleasure I felt?"

Claire Lerner, a child-development worker, carried out a US government-funded study into the effect of inundating children with toys. She found that too many playthings can restrict development and may harm children. "They get overwhelmed and over-stimulated and cannot concentrate on any one thing long enough to learn from it so they just shut down. Too many toys means they are not learning to play imaginatively either."