SISTER WISDOM

I congratulate myself on my skills of observation. It only took me a month to notice that those boxes of toys I keep tripping over – in the sun room, the front room, the bedrooms – are left emphatically alone by my children. Dismally untouched.

I don’t want to think about the amount of money represented there, now just sitting, unused. Little plastic pieces and rubber gizmos and wooden blocks — they’ve even abandoned the wooden block set! That one hurts because I like the idea of neat little towers of wooden blocks. Maybe if all the wooden blocks weren’t lost in the jumble of MacDonald’s toys and raggedy baby dolls.

I’m thinking of a drastic change. I’m thinking of just getting rid of the toys. Chunked. Out the window. To the Good Will. I can do this, I think, because I haven’t bought most of them. They were gifts or hand-me-downs or maybe thrift store purchases. And they are taking up space while my children play with non-toys. Things like

• my bowls and spoons in the kitchen
• random lengths of ribbon and yarn
• sticks
• gravel
• dirt
• mud
• water
• markers and crayons and play-dough and glue sticks
• bubbles
• sidewalk chalk
• books

Today Mara and Robbie spent an hour standing on little chairs in front of the sink washing dishes for me. An hour. And I actually had to tell Mara it was time to stop… Sure, they got wet. They got water on the floor. I needed to mop anyway; it actually made the job a bit easier to have some sudsy water there.

I’m getting a message from the kiddos and the message is this: hey, Mom, we like to play but we like to play with real stuff. These other toys are boring.

That makes sense. The only toys around that they do pay attention to at all are things like

• trucks and cars and tractors
• train table with trains
• purses and “fancy” dresses
• play kitchen with play kitchen stuff
• a few special baby dolls

They like things that are helpful for playing at real life, because that’s what kids are interested in. Real Life. The real life that Mommy and Daddy are part of.
The real life that they’re going to grow up and have. That real life. The one that matters. They know this, instinctively. They care. They are playing at it because that’s how they learn about it and that’s how they prepare for it.

Two days ago Mara spent 30 minutes chopping mushrooms with a butter knife. A few days before that, Mara and Robbie sat at the counter diligently peeling boiled eggs. They were more absorbed in this “work” than they would have been in a movie or any fancy shiny new plastic thing.

So, hmmmm, let me think: I can entertain my daugher with a handful of mushrooms and a butter knife, and she’s learning kitchen skills, or I can spend $25 on a toy that will teach her nothing and will break and will lose its appeal before it breaks. You can buy a lot of mushrooms for $25. That’s a lot of chopping.
That’s a lot of time with my daughter at the kitchen counter, chatting me up while she works away, helping me with dinner, not just playing at real life but actively participating in it.

This is getting to be less and less of a tough decision and more and more of a given. I’ll keep you posted.

Images

1. Who needs toys courtesy of Ernst Vikne on Flickr.