Boys and Their Toys – Another Look at Change

6 months ago

It's been said "you can tell the difference between men and boys by the cost of their toys." I know at my house that is certainly true!

This week I have been musing on change – that ever present fact of life.

In an earlier post, I shared how the times of our life and the circumstances reflect in the color of my hair. But as I pondered longer, I found another way that life is funny.

The toys we surround our selves with say a lot about where we are in life.

As a young mother, my kids discovered Barney – a six foot, singing and dancing purple dinosaur. It was the age of the VHS- Tape. We had every Barney video, crates of Sing-Along Songs, and every Disney Classic we could get our hands on. But in the end, if my youngest had his choice – it was Barney every time. Barney was a giant – his happy hero. Now, baby Nicholas is 6′6 – having grown into our own happy hero. My guess is today he would look down on his giant purple friend in more ways than one!

As the boys grew older, plush cuddlinessand happy songs made way for Pokémon and Power Rangers. Play evolved from imaginary friends to completions between imaginary creatures and saving the Earth from outer-space villains and creatures. And the toys grew more expensive! Gone was the luxury of a $12 plush toy. Now the Christmas lists included swords and costumes, Rangers of different colors, and Megazords to fight the major battles.

Not to mention the shoe boxes full of Pokémon creatures on cards. I still remember returning from a several week trip to Asia in the early 90's. My return was a BIG hit with my two boys – not because Mommy was finally home – but because in Mommy's suitcase they found packages of Pokémon cards in Japanese! (My youngest child was thrilled to play with them – my oldest wanted to sell them to his friends!)

But time moves on and preferences change –or do they? Soon Dads and boys alike were huddled over X-Box controllers playing Halo. The price of the X-Box and games was nothing compared to the GIANT TV they just had to have so that all three of them could play at once as a team to save future worlds on the Halo Megastructure.

I once thought the constant repetitiveness of Barney songs might drive me mad – but that was nothing compared to the cacophony of machine gun fire, grenades, and exploding monsters in surround sound!

Toys morphed into ‘equipment' for baseball, basketball and soccer before both boys settled into Ice Hockey Year round. For eight years it was constant trips to Behind the Mask – for pads, skates, sticks and the like. Chris at 20, is still in the game, this year Playing D for the New Jersey Hitmen. Nick stopped playing in High School when his feet got to big for his skates.

He moved on to bigger toys yet again – CARS! Working with Dad, he'd tune up and repair his car and his brother's on a rotation basis as boys are want to do.

Simple Green in a spray bottle is now my favorite laundry aid to get the grease out of shorts and T-Shirts!

Girls come and go. The boys have yet to discover how expensive THOSE toys can really be. But Dad has learned, for girl friends become wives – and YES – we're expensive!

Then come babies and bigger houses to make room for them, Dad's toys take a back seat to the array of treasures the little men will need. Not to mention saying good bye to toys like power boats – why keep one when you spend every weekend at the hockey rink – or motorcycles – "You're a Dad now – those are too dangerous!"