My Word's Worth: a weekly column by Marylaine Block

vol. 2, #30, March 7, 1997

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS FUTURE

Every Christmas I get a little more discouraged about the version of Christmas that is being sold to children, and about the kinds of toys kids are being taught to want. No, not just want. Whine for unrelentingly.

Yes, I do have golden memories of Christmas as a child, and the pleasure of unwrapping presents. But, you know, our presents were different. Some of them were clothes we'd been hoping for and couldn't reasonably expect on our normal clothing budget. Some of them were games, for the whole family to play. Some of them were books. And some of them were toys, yes. But they were toys that stretched your mind and imagination. They were open-ended toys, like erector sets. There were suggestions on some of the kinds of things you could make, but once you figured out the basic principles of construction, you could, in fact, build anything you were able to imagine in the first place.

Then there were electric train sets, where the train was only the beginning. You were the traffic engineer, deciding how many trains, with how many cars, carrying how much freight, and when and where. But you were also the city planner and the architect, building the houses and towns the trains went through. And you had the powers of God--you could create mountains and valleys and rivers. Having created these obstacles, you could then build bridges and tunnels to surmount them.

And then there were the boxes the toys came in. The bigger the box, the greater the possibilities. Best of all was when your mom got a new refrigerator, because that humongous carton could be a fort, a clubhouse, a bedroom or kitchen, or just a place to hide when the world got to be too much for you to deal with.

We girls, of course, got dolls, to teach us how to take care of children. And the dolls were demonstrably babies, with big heads and shapeless bodies. Some of the more advanced models of the time were able to make crying noises, "drink" water, and wet their diapers. Just like real, live babies, only less rewarding--the dolls, after all, didn't coo back at you, or get a big soppy grin on their faces when you came into view.

The boys had dolls, too, incidentally. They just weren't called dolls. They were called toy soldiers. Boys learned about strategy and tactics, and maybe a little history, too, as they fought their imaginary battles, or re-created real ones.

These toys taught us specific skills, and made us feel competent. And If they taught us our roles, as caretakers and doers and builders and protectors, they also stretched our imaginations.

The books also opened up new worlds to us. They taught us about worlds across the sea and stars, worlds that never were, worlds that just might be possible. We learned to value people for what they were, for we understood that the Tin Man had always had a heart, and that the Beast was kinder and better than any of Beauty's "normal" greedy sisters. We learned that heroes aimed high, and sometimes failed, but struggled on regardless.

We learned to hate wickedness and unkindness. We despised Hansel and Gretel's stepmother, and the gnome king, and the orcs, but we learned to pity the weakness and foolishness of Gollum, and of the wizard of Oz. We learned that adults cherished children's playfulness and imagination. We saw that children could make mistakes and be loved anyway. These books taught us to love and forgive ourselves. They showed us that children could be forced to take on tasks and burdens far too great, bear them nonetheless, and triumph.

Our books also gave us a love for and command of language, which gave us the power of thought. We learned the words to envision all kinds of concepts, and we learned how to put those words together into sentences, paragraphs, chapters. We saw how people assembled evidence to advance an argument, and we began to understand logical relationships between ideas.

Our toys and our books showed us that there were hardly any limits (except maybe gender) on what we could dream and think and accomplish.

What has changed since then?

The toys got less open-ended. Instead of erector sets and building blocks, we got one Lego kit to make a castle, another Lego kit to make a bridge, and still another Lego kit to make an airplane. Follow the directions. Make exactly what they tell you to make. Color inside the lines.

The boys' dolls, those toy soldiers, became "action figures" designed to act out the TV shows the kids spent Saturday mornings watching, no extra imagination or dialogue required. The girl's dolls became task-specific. Some dolls eat, some wet their diapers, some chat electronically. There's no need to make up conversations for both you and your doll, trying out new roles, because the dolls have set conversations you have to respond to. And, of course, with the Barbie doll, the whole relationship between child and doll changes. The little girl isn't learning how to be a mother anymore--she is learning from the doll that girls needed to be pretty, flirtatious, well-dressed, and popular. (And stacked.)

As the toys all became more electronic, kids have learned that their role is to sit back and watch the toys perform. Kids watch the toy robots waddle across the floor, and watch their dolls as they "eat" food (and little girls' hair), and deposit ridiculous little pellets in their diapers.

The games have changed, too. The board games and card games we used to play involved the whole family. After all, a game of Clue with only two people is too easy. A game of Shanghai with only two players is impossible. A game of Dummy with two players is no fun.

The board games and card games taught us logical deduction, and strategy--was it better to have two houses on Boardwalk or a hotel on Baltic Avenue? They taught us cooperation and collusion and scheming. They taught us to play by the rules, or sometimes to agree on new rules when they would make a game more fun or more challenging (when my son and I play word games, we agree to accept any made up word if its inventor can make a good enough case that it should exist). Games taught us that skills could be learned and mastered. They taught us the pleasure of winning, and good grace in losing. And they allowed us to enjoy each other's company, and understand each other better.

When my son was little, video games were just coming on the market, and video games changed everything. What did they teach kids?

1. Mostly, that you were all alone in the world, just you against the machine.
2. That that was all right because you didn't need people. You could play with machines instead.
3. That your job was to kill something.
4. And that you couldn't win. Not ever. No matter how good you got at shooting down asteroids and alien warships and round gobbling creatures, there were always more, and they started coming at you faster and faster. You learned that you were living in a stacked deck--something you ideally shouldn't learn until you're thirty.

Yep, you're right. These were toys for boys. It was tough to get girls to learn computer skills, because girls mostly didn't enjoy pointless shoot-em-ups. They wanted to play with each other.

But maybe the worst thing about giving gifts to children now is that we are not choosing the gifts anymore. Instead, the manufacturers decide what they're going to make, and then tell our kids, over and over, on television, to buy those things, or insist their parents buy them. And what they tell our kids to want is mostly expensive but tawdry stuff, made in third world countries by children just like them except that they're poorer, browner, and a lot less healthy.

There's probably nothing wrong with a Tickle Me, Elmo doll. But, at what cost to some other child do we buy it for our kids? Where is the surprise and delight on Christmas morning, when the child unwraps what she has been whining for since September? And can any toy possibly live up to the expectations that kids have been building up during that long, hard sell?

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