00:00:00.000I was a very arts and crafts heavy kid I remember being obsessed with that like plastic string that
00:00:07.940you could make lanyards out of as well as like embroidery floss of all types which like my
00:00:14.560children have recently gotten into friendship bracelets like all that kind of stuff I remember
00:00:20.840having like one of those it looks like Saturn it's like a ball that you can bounce on and it's
00:00:26.400like a pogo ball maybe yes pogo ball was like very coveted a scooter yeah those are the ones
00:00:35.540that are really just coming to mind I was obsessed with my little ponies my collection was a real mix
00:00:42.400of I'm sure like ones that were bought at a normal store and then we got a lot of garage sale ponies
00:00:48.160and that was how we also got like their various places where they resided I don't know how to
00:00:54.600like there was like there was my little pony like barbershop and my little pony mansion and all that
00:01:04.120sort of thing and i in my in my memory they were always like just slightly worn and degraded but
00:01:09.780nonetheless precious and then the other one that's like kind of the um a more like everyone
00:01:16.180remembers the commercial or like what was that weird toy i had a popple oh yes yeah yeah and
00:01:22.980was obsessed with it. Just, yeah, like very much of a moment. And I feel like the popple has not
00:01:30.380come back, although it maybe should because people love stuffies. I mean, there's still time
00:01:35.140for things to cycle back. This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.
00:01:46.300And I'm Youngna Park. I'm a writer. I cover children's toys. I read a sub stack about
00:01:51.280parenting in the modern age, and I have a background in building digital products for
00:01:56.400children. I will say this more as we go along, but I love the Substack. I read it every week.
00:02:01.660I'm not a parent, and I love it. So part of the reason I wanted to have you on the show is because
00:02:06.440you actually have a really interesting background in thinking about toys, not just like,
00:02:11.280you know, I could have a parent come on and be like, this is my opinion about toys. But you
00:02:15.660have thought a lot about how to create toys, how kids interact with toys. So can you tell me a
00:02:21.700little bit about that? Yeah. So my background before, like I've thought about physical toys
00:02:27.120is actually in building what we call what were digital toys. So early apps for kids. And at the
00:02:32.780time it was with a company called tiny bop. And we were thinking about how to use this iPad or
00:02:39.120iPhone, which is new and create like a rich digital environment for kids to play. And at
00:02:45.320the time I did not have children but we had to talk to a lot of parents and talk to a lot of
00:02:50.740children and think about like how do kids actually play and I did that for a long time and that kind
00:02:57.340of evolved into like a whole line of work in which I was constantly thinking about how do you think
00:03:02.880about what problem you're trying to solve for a parent how do a child how does a child play when
00:03:07.300when are they going to play with what type of thing like what's the right age what's the right
00:03:10.760environment. And now I work and I consult with like all these companies that work on everything
00:03:15.440from physical toys to like, you know, subscription products to building like digital environments for
00:03:23.460kids, kids apps. And a lot of it just puts me in touch with thinking about, yeah, like what is that
00:03:29.580intersection of how things are positioned, how things are made and how things are like actually
00:03:35.560interacted with. And then there's a part of it, which is I have two children who are seven and
00:03:40.980nine. And so there's a lot of trial and error. They're very different personalities. They play
00:03:47.220with things very differently. I'm interested a lot in the conversation around like what people
00:03:54.520think children need and how that comes across. And that's actually something I get into so much
00:04:05.560in my work, which is I often spend a lot of time talking to parents about what are their habits
00:04:11.500around buying things or looking for things? And why do they go about it that way? And there's so
00:04:18.260many layers to their own perception of what they're doing, what they think that they're addressing.
00:04:25.960And then I think the way the market frames up products to try to solve people's problems.
00:04:33.060Totally. And we'll get into this a lot when we start the questions, but there's also like you can't talk about buying toys for kids without also thinking and talking about your own relationship to toys as a kid, as an adult.
00:04:48.320Like, how do you think about toys? What are the layers of emotion that are like pasted onto these toys? And that showed up so much in the questions, which I should have expected, but maybe I didn't expect quite as much.
00:05:03.060Yes. Yes. We're going to get into a lot of the questions that are like, why are toys this way? Like, why are they built this way? That sort of thing. And then we're going to answer two questions in what's called the Ask Anne Anything segment. One of them is about how you can prevent people from giving your kids, quote unquote, shitty toys. And another is we're going to talk about all of your recommendations.
00:05:24.060So, listeners, if that sounds like something that you need to inform any of your future plans, you can head to culturestudypod.substack.com and become a paid subscriber.
00:05:35.140So, questions. Let's start off with a doozy from Corinne.
00:05:39.800I would love for some smart people to explore what's behind the cult of Love Avery and wooden or Montessori toys in general.
00:05:47.480It just feels like such blatant capitalism masquerading as a kind of perfect trad wives sort of lifestyle. But the lure of the quote, right kind of parenting is so appealing to people, including myself, across the political spectrum. And of course, this is all mixed up with classism, elitism, the crisis of early childcare, and so much more.
00:06:10.640All right, we're going to start basic. What's the deal? That's like a huge question. But we're
00:06:16.000going to start with what's the deal with wooden toys? Okay, so I think the deal with wooden toys
00:06:21.980is like a lot of things in the kids space, it comes from a very good place, which is that
00:06:26.480like wood is a very durable material in which to make things that is, you know, historically very
00:06:33.080accessible to people. And you can see this like in, you know, a lot of classrooms, Waldorf schools,
00:06:38.900Montessori schools where there's a lot of things made out of wood because kids can go crazy on them
00:06:43.440and they will last the test of time so I think wood toys comes from a place like that and then
00:06:50.000over time right you see a lot of shift into like this divisiveness between like plastic and what
00:06:54.640it signifies and wood and what that signifies and also like what it just costs to produce things
00:07:00.100out of wood versus out of plastic and how mass market those things can be so I think there's
00:07:04.820that aspect of it I think like love every I think about it as one there's like the business side of
00:07:10.720it which is like there's so many things competing for children's attention and parents attention
00:07:15.160and you have this group which is like new parents or new grandparents or family members who are so
00:07:22.100excited about a new baby that there's like such a willingness to spend like a an astounding amount
00:07:28.380of money on a very young child and it's like this very sort of vulnerable point in a person's life
00:07:36.980where they're just like they want to do good by whatever this new like human being might need
00:07:41.960and like so many other areas that have turned to subscription there's like a lot of value in
00:07:48.720the idea that you can get someone then send them something every month and they'll stick with you
00:07:52.780for like hopefully a couple of years um I think the aesthetic of it like I do think there's this
00:07:59.620point where you know everything becomes very visual people are showing off their homes it
00:08:04.160fits into this very sort of like white modern minimal home aesthetic of like every play thing
00:08:11.840also as an object and if my child is going to play in an aesthetically playing place that becomes
00:08:18.740like a home environment that I can also show. And then I think there's also like a virtue
00:08:23.540signaling element of like, my child is playing with edifying things, and they're like proven
00:08:29.800to be edifying. And all of those things combined have a lot of different outgoing messages.
00:08:37.900Yeah, I'm looking at right now the for people who aren't familiar with love every, I guess
00:08:44.120that's how you pronounce it love every love every um so it's a subscription service and then like
00:08:50.940the one i'm looking at right now is called the sensor play kit for months five to six and it's
00:08:55.560like cute wooden things like a little sock with like a nice i don't know it's like a sock i would
00:09:01.940like to wear like a ball with some textures and some colors on it a little book that says
00:09:07.380parts of me and i am assuming that it opens and then has like parts of the body it's just very
00:09:14.080what i think like people will call tasteful yes and like that's fascinating that we have to think
00:09:20.200of kids toys as tasteful or distasteful yeah and i think that there's become this very ongoing
00:09:26.880discourse that's tied to the class element that there's like an idea of the right way to play
00:09:31.820or that there are better ways to play and those better ways are kind of tied to like sometimes
00:09:38.560how educational something is or like the right amount of stimulation or restraint of stimulation
00:09:46.140in a lot of these cases. Like, I mean, that's a lot of the argument against like battery
00:09:51.360operated toys, things that make noise. I mean, I do think there are like a lot of pros to like
00:09:56.640some of these, like, like a play kitchen to me is like a really amazing toy slash environment
00:10:03.560for a kid where like wood is great it lasts a long time it being well made can be very helpful
00:10:10.000it's like expandable you can always add more stuff to it and there are ways in which to me
00:10:15.460like the material makes sense for what the play thing is I don't think there's any default that
00:10:21.620suggests that wood is better for children than right other materials I think that's a projection
00:10:28.280right yeah yeah for sure and I think there's also this idea that like we're gonna pass down these
00:10:35.840toys that somehow people hold on to too like I want it to be sustainable in some way which you
00:10:43.180know my mom held on to our childhood toys for a very very long time hoping for grandkids um or
00:10:49.380just in case there were grandkids and then they went to other homes but I like it took up she was
00:10:53.860only able to preserve those toys because she had a big basement in a non-urban space these toys
00:10:59.520don't necessarily find homes the other thing i would say like and i see this in the the montessori
00:11:04.180style of toy discourse is this like we want a toy that demands imagination from a kid yeah
00:11:11.620yeah right like we don't want to hand it over yeah i think the other like sort of divisive area is
00:11:18.000like toys that are like one-off kits versus toys that are, I mean, this is kind of my entire
00:11:26.360position, which is like, if I were to think of a pantry and you have ingredients, that might be
00:11:31.800things like blocks, art supplies, raw materials that can be used in a lot of ways, Legos also,
00:11:37.620even though they're plastic. And then you have things that are almost like a meal kit. Here is
00:11:42.900everything you need to use at this one time but if you lose like one piece then sorry this is no
00:11:49.260longer really relevant to you my general approach is just like buy things in the category of the
00:11:55.040pantry category as opposed to the like one-off category because then you don't have to be that
00:12:00.200precious about them you can lose a thousand legos and there's still more legos yeah totally okay so
00:12:07.680our next question is one of the ones that we got a lot of and this is about even more about the
00:12:12.220aesthetic of kids' toys. This comes from Katrina. I'm currently expecting my first child and have
00:12:17.500just started exploring the world of children's toys and goods. Why is everything so beige and
00:12:22.540muted? Sage Green is about as exciting as things get. In my mind, it is somehow tied to our general
00:12:28.560obsession with all things Scandinavian and or quiet luxury. Is it all just about trying to
00:12:34.740emulate the rich white person aesthetic? If I want something in finding Nemo primary colors,0.64
00:12:39.640am i signaling myself as being somehow low class i love like the idea of primary colors is like
00:12:46.380class coded uh but i don't think she's wrong yeah yeah my take on this is that it has something to
00:12:52.660do with like open concept planning with homes yes i mean i think her assessment is pretty
00:12:59.660spot on like which it's funny because then you think about like a lot of the other origins of
00:13:04.120play it's like very primary colors like dick bruna and the miffy world or like bauhaus or
00:13:10.340alexander calder's like puppets and stuff like that so like a lot of that stuff actually
00:13:15.040occupies like a really different era of like um visual language so i definitely think yes it is
00:13:22.040attributed to like gender neutrality i can buy any of these toys or any of these garments for
00:13:27.400any gender child i again like the display object element the general trends towards the certain
00:13:34.760color palettes and minimalism and then like those being emulated by every other brand um i do think
00:13:42.280there's like a bit at least in like children's apparel like a reactionary thing happening with
00:13:46.760maximalism yeah like print all over stuff or like the primary basics or like european brands like
00:13:54.540mini rodini or this one called molo that my son loves like that are very graphic and maximalist
00:14:00.880so like i'm waiting for the revival of bright colors and children's toys too but i do think
00:14:08.840the the plastic toys i mean some of that's the material right like if you have stuff made out
00:14:13.240of like silicone or wood it's going to be a lot more muted and natural versus stuff that's happening
00:14:18.020in in plastic i think a lot of plastic is also really tied to like toys with ip attachments
00:14:23.840and so you get like paw patrol toys you get like whatever gabby's dollhouse like whatever the color
00:14:30.820palette is of the ip that you're riffing off of when you think about the environments where those
00:14:36.680toys are being sold which is more like you know big box stores walmart target they're competing
00:14:43.160against those other toys versus like e-com businesses that might be selling the love
00:14:49.880every's, which is not really like a physical store toy. Yeah. You know, this makes me think
00:14:57.560about this advertisement that I constantly get served for a wooden dog crate. And I just saw
00:15:05.180this, this ad that said very specifically, what was previously implied, which said,
00:15:10.860can you believe it, a dog crate that matches my aesthetic. And, and it's like very, like,
00:15:18.460I have wanted to buy this dog crate and then you click on it and you're like I would have to have
00:15:22.700a large dog crate and that is 450 US dollars like it is just preposterous but the idea that like
00:15:30.060all of your belongings should match an aesthetic is something that I think like our idealized
00:15:38.000selves think could you know make our lives better simpler and so I think some of this
00:15:45.440feels to me like a manifestation of parental stress and chaos that like if I can just get
00:15:52.280the toys to not make me feel bad when I'm in my space yeah then somehow I will feel like I have
00:15:59.020my shit together yes yeah I mean I think that yeah I think there's parental I mean kids are
00:16:06.620very messy like I was joking with my friend that like the thing nobody tells you about becoming a0.99
00:16:12.000parent is that you'll clean like 10 times as much as you used to because it's like exponential the
00:16:17.600mess and a lot of that is just kids stuff and it's everywhere right so yes I think there's like a part
00:16:24.720of like I think that's why also like parents are obsessed with home organization on this other
00:16:28.760level is like containers and bins and like storage and I mean I've written pieces for a strategist
00:16:34.160about like storage furniture because it is such a huge industry to try to like rein it in
00:16:40.100And I think the, like, decor element, like, I don't know, I read this essay by the writer Haley Nauman, and she was talking about this, like, orientation towards having, like, complete or, like, fully designed rooms to unveil.
00:16:54.620And I think, like, having a nursery to unveil where everything is, like, coordinated and matching and you have, like, a nugget that's the right color, like, I think it's very much fallen into that same thing where it's, like, hard to see as a work in progress and you feel like you have to have, like, you know, the right mobile and the right artwork and, like, it kind of works with this.
00:17:14.060it is like an entire aesthetic as opposed to a living breathing space um but and then i think
00:17:21.580like the market has also like tapped into that um where they're obviously trying to make like
00:17:27.580these design objecty presentable toys that also convince more parents that that would be something
00:17:36.560that's necessary or look nice whether it gets played with or not yeah yeah and also a manifestation
00:17:42.520to some extent of like this ambivalence about how having kids can be transformational and
00:17:50.580the desire that I see articulated a lot is like I don't want to lose myself right I don't want
00:17:56.620to lose my space I like I don't want to compromise all these parts of myself and my space that I have0.79
00:18:01.740cultivated which to me also seems like a symptom of middle class families having kids a little bit
00:18:08.960later in life. Right. So like when my mom had me at age 23, like she hadn't established a personal0.70
00:18:15.520aesthetic for the kid to wreck. Whereas if you have your kid at 38, there is an aesthetic that
00:18:21.400is, that is well established and an understanding of like what my space looks like that can be
00:18:26.500thrown into chaos. Yeah. And like more disposable income, but also just like much more aware of
00:18:32.840other people's aesthetics or some like expectation of what, you know, kids room looks like or toy
00:18:38.120room looks like which yeah you know it's a lot of pressure yes okay this is actually this is a
00:18:44.740great segue so this comes from hannah this question as the mom of a three-year-old it seems
00:18:50.520like the big toys these days are actually expensive equipment for your playroom the play couch the
00:18:56.420pickler triangle a sensory swing two hundred dollar german stepping stones ahem staplestein
00:19:03.960is this a new trend it seems like these are all marketed as helping your child's development
00:19:08.800too okay is this like interior swing set like i i'm only like i i've seen this from afar in terms
00:19:17.340of like especially the obsession over the nugget couch but otherwise i i would love to just know
00:19:22.260more of what she's talking about i do think there's a part of this that's oriented for
00:19:26.820non-urban people with space uh we went to like a friend's house upstate and who lives their
00:19:33.800full time and they had like six nuggets because they have an entire playroom six oh yeah it's
00:19:39.620like their entire basement was like one nugget thing after another and like a climbing wall and
00:19:45.600i was like this is amazing because you have like 4 000 square feet um so i think there's that i
00:19:52.100don't actually know people in new york with swings in their houses so like i i wonder like who the
00:19:57.180demographic is exactly but like definitely like an upper middle class person there's so much emphasis
00:20:01.540also on like sensory toys and like I think a lot of this came up during COVID when people were
00:20:07.520inside like what can you do to move and like just yeah like exert your body in any way when you're
00:20:14.580in some confines of your house and then a lot of this stuff around yeah like balance like gross
00:20:20.140motor development I think those are like very buzzy words in terms of just trying to emphasize
00:20:24.620in like in the marketing speak a lot of the like developmental benefits of stuff so I think you get
00:20:31.200this kind of confluence again of like the highly aesthetic object with with like this thing that
00:20:36.840i mean i think there are good versions not not like those are bad but i think there are versions
00:20:41.740that are like less um like a ninja line like i know a lot of kids and who have like these things
00:20:47.140that are like little obstacle courses with like you can put it up between any two trees and it
00:20:51.820helps you like you balance you climb on it has like some monkey bars some hanging things like
00:20:56.640And I don't think all of the types of toys that fall into this category have to be like massively space consuming or so expensive, but I definitely think there are a handful that have become kind of statusy objects that sort of maybe are statusy just because of the price points that they demand.
00:21:14.080that to me seems like a manifestation of like the individualization of play like the idea that you
00:21:21.200should have monkey bar type apparatuses in your personal home instead of oh we have a public park
00:21:27.040where everyone can go and do these things right yeah yeah yeah and like I mean I have a whole
00:21:33.900strong set of strong feelings about playgrounds as well um and how risk averse what are your strong
00:21:39.600feelings i also have strong feelings tell me your strong feelings um okay so i think that a lot of
00:21:45.940american playgrounds come from this point of uh trying to just avoid like liability and risk and
00:21:51.920they're very like formulaic and made out of a kit and made of materials that are like really
00:21:56.920regular and um often like very harsh so you have like um paved paved grounds you have metal you
00:22:06.660have stuff that's really cold, like kids are not going to play on that in the winter. And you also
00:22:11.980just have like, there becomes like a fairly set and rote number of ways in which you can play on
00:22:17.500that equipment. Whereas like, you know, all over Europe, and then I think places that have like
00:22:23.000less litigious environments, China, in terms of just like riskier playground design, right,
00:22:29.580you have stuff that my brother in law lives in Germany. So we've been to a lot of playgrounds
00:22:35.200Berlin right you guys get stuff that's again like made out of materials that have less regularity
00:22:39.960they are wood but like I think from comes from just an abundant material um they are inviting
00:22:47.540kids to like challenge themselves in physical ways that they don't that are like less predictable
00:22:54.020there's a great piece in the Atlantic um about like the over protected child I was just going
00:22:59.460to mention this piece it's like canonical for me yeah yeah so that and then there's this great book
00:23:05.200by amy fesselman called savage park where she goes to like this japanese adventure playgrounds
00:23:11.080and um yeah like i i and i work on one of the working groups with the adventure playground in
00:23:17.380new york too and just trying to like get in front of more parents and stuff and yeah i just think
00:23:22.560it like kind of speaks to the general risk aversion and like maybe some of that idea of
00:23:28.180just like having an individualized play environment in my yard and like doing it is also like I can
00:23:33.860keep an eye on my child they're not too far away from me there's like it does de-risk the situation
00:23:39.600pretty significantly um and I don't know that people are like consciously doing that I think
00:23:45.000it's very like shifted in that direction very generationally and become just like very normal
00:23:50.340to to operate like that my favorite part of that overprotected kid article is when she talks about
00:23:57.300the, I think it's in the UK, the playground where the kids can start fires and like the way she has
00:24:04.420to couch this, the fact that these kids can do that, like the, the way that the author has to
00:24:10.720couch this so that American audiences won't immediately go like, Oh my God. Right. And
00:24:16.000instead explain about how like small risks like this are actually incredibly and developmentally
00:24:21.980beneficial. Yeah. Well, I find it just so deeply ironic that like the thing that people seem
00:24:29.160desperate for is like to build grit and build independence. And yet like, yeah, there's so much
00:24:36.280de-risking all the time, like in the name of potential like safety issues. So I think it's
00:24:46.760kind of like operating at a couple of different levels, but I do think it's a bit of a
00:24:51.080contradictory tendency. Yeah. Especially when like the biggest risk is actually probably
00:24:56.560kids organized sports in terms of like long-term damage. I love this segue, but we have to go to
00:25:04.200our next question. So this comes, this is about the look and feel of toys and it comes from Diana.
00:25:10.620This is not a question so much as a sad, sad comment about the state of toys being absolute
00:25:15.920garbage, similar to the episode you did on why clothes are now garbage. My mom kept my brother's
00:25:21.760toys from 30 years ago. He's now 34. My two young children love to play with them. The difference
00:25:27.600in the quality of the Transformers, the cars, the Hot Wheels, the Ninja Turtles, planes, etc.
00:25:34.200It's astounding. The toys we buy now for them are plastic garbage that fall apart immediately.0.70
00:25:39.920There's zero detail or craftsmanship. Many of these 20 to 30 year old toys that were saved
00:25:45.240were still plastic, but they managed to be much higher quality. You can see and feel the difference.
00:25:51.260I even noticed this with a Sanrio pencil sharpener of all things that I saved. It's
00:25:56.320probably 35 years old and it sharpens perfectly. Whereas my son has pencil sharpeners now that
00:26:01.940can't even sharpen a pencil without breaking. It makes me sad. Why are all the toys garbage now?
00:26:08.020Okay. So I have to know, are the toys garbage now? I do think there's differences in quality.
00:26:14.700like everything right like how is it being manufactured i mean like one of the trends
00:26:19.500that drives me absolutely bananas is like goodie bags at school full of disposable trinkets that
00:26:25.940come home with my children and it's all like yeah there's no crafts just like as much as you could
00:26:33.020buy for the least amount of money so like fidgets and slap bracelets i do believe like people are
00:26:39.820out there making still beautiful toys like I do think like happy toys are great quality and like
00:26:47.080I do think they come with a price point in some cases whether they're of the quality of like a
00:26:52.460Tonka truck from you know 1985 like I can't really say I would guess it's just like the
00:26:59.020direction that manufacturing has gone and people knowing that largely like things are very
00:27:04.900disposable again like we live in New York so we're not really hanging on to that many toys
00:27:09.040like i love getting rid of stuff as soon as children are done playing with it but i will
00:27:15.080say like some of the things i was mentioning being like kind of like i don't know magnet tiles
00:27:19.520last forever like they're basically unbreakable legos last forever i think there are certain
00:27:25.040things where like if you get these sort of like component parts and they are quite durable and
00:27:31.100they're made out of pretty good materials um you know there's these things called click so they're
00:27:35.880like magnetic um sort of shapey parts that you can make like crowns and cars and all this stuff
00:27:41.260with like that are made out of kind of like a flexible plastic like again can be it's not like
00:27:46.640material specific i just think like things that can stand up to like heavy use play very
00:27:51.860multifaceted play i'm not gonna like get wet and get destroyed like um i think about that as like
00:27:58.920kind of the new form of durability and less like one you know doll that's gonna last forever
00:28:05.640car it's gonna last forever one test that i always think about when i'm giving toys is i think about
00:28:12.720the church nursery where i used to spend a lot of time watching kids what were the toys that
00:28:19.940lasted like from when i was a kid in that nursery until when i was watching kids in that nursery
00:28:24.920yeah and it's like you know the um the phone that's also a car and that goes like like it's
00:28:33.280like a Fisher. I'm glad that you picked up. I'm sure that most listeners to this podcast will
00:28:39.040also know what I'm talking about, but we will put a picture in, in the show notes, but like
00:28:43.480that lasted for 20 years. One, one single one of that. Right. And maybe if you bought a brand new
00:28:50.600one today, it wouldn't, but you could also find that, that toy on eBay. And it's not weird to
00:28:56.940like buy that on eBay. Yeah. The other thing that I'm thinking about is people want to get cool
00:29:02.600gifts for their kids or for someone else's kids and then you look it up and then you're like oh
00:29:07.680well is that a normal price I'm like oh $30 for a microscope okay I'll buy that and then I'm like0.99
00:29:13.800oh that's a piece of shit like why am I surprised the same way that I shouldn't be surprised when I0.97
00:29:18.940buy a $40 cashmere sweater right yeah yeah well I mean there's different categories right there's1.00
00:29:29.200like the very everything has a cheap alternative that you can get on amazon and then you have like
00:29:34.760a different one but yeah there's definitely like toy kitchens that are 600 which is like as much
00:29:40.040as i spend on like my real kitchen so you're like why yeah it seems like very um disproportionate
00:29:48.300maybe to like yeah but uh i think like the gift market is like an interesting reason that a lot
00:29:55.460of things are very expensive is because they know that like you have a lot of like grandparents
00:30:00.360buying you have a lot of thing I've actually heard I can't I can't like say this for sure but
00:30:05.180that I think a lot of like kiwi crate and like love every are often gifting items like and that's
00:30:12.660a huge market or like a huge part of their audience in addition to parents because I think
00:30:19.780there's also just like a lot of signaling and like what somebody else buys for your child and what
00:30:24.140that says about them and what you know wanting to give your child something that you will think is
00:30:30.020also a value um like not giving more clutter to parents is a huge like theme of this generation
00:30:38.800of parents and like i for because there's so much abundance of stuff well and this gets to a
00:30:47.160question that i think i that i saw a lot in the questions that came in which was like how do i
00:30:52.980get people to give me less stuff and a lot of my friends have experienced difficulty discouraging
00:31:00.260their parents from giving them more stuff right giving their kids more stuff and like I feel it
00:31:06.900I want to give kids things that will make them associate me with being a giver of gifts to them
00:31:13.340yeah but then I also know that like I am creating a problem with my light up Iron Man mask that I
00:31:21.140one of my friend's kids the other week um but historically i also have done things like
00:31:29.580give annoying things which i know is sometimes like the anti-task so like i gave that one of
00:31:35.040those popcorn bubble popper things that you push around right like just a horrible gift on my part
00:31:41.020i love doing it though i'm such a troll um yeah but i do think you're right that the gift giving
00:31:46.500component of this creates a complication and these crates to me are like it used to be you'd
00:31:52.900give your kid like national geographic kids or like highlights magazine yeah and now it's a kiwi
00:32:01.820crate i yeah yeah and like again like i think it comes from a good place we've tried these crates
00:32:08.520they're very well designed they're super smart and it's like such uh I mean one it requires so
00:32:16.760much parent involvement to like actually build the thing it's very expensive it can set a weird
00:32:23.980precedent and like I do think there are people like like my parents who like cannot show up
00:32:29.960without a gift even if it's not a birthday or Christmas and you're like it's just a lot all
00:32:34.780the time and I do think there's like different you know cohorts of grandparents there's ones
00:32:41.840who are going to like buy your kid tons of stuff no matter what you say you can't really stop it
00:32:45.540I think there are people that you can be like really direct with and just be like here is the
00:32:49.440one thing that they really actually would need or value my daughter got her ears pierced last
00:32:54.400last year and like the thing she wants is like hoop earrings and like very specific hoop earrings1.00
00:33:01.100So like, that is it. Like, and I actually think that they really like being told exactly what to get, because they don't like spend all this time deliberating over like, what she may or may not like, or appreciate. I don't know, I think it's hard with the quality question, because everyone has different judgments and different opinions about like, you know, what they want.
00:33:22.520other people very infrequently pick the thing out just for you that you would pick up for yourself
00:33:28.140i think i don't think that's limited to toys um but i i would encourage you to like just
00:33:34.200be very direct with people about like what kinds of things would be nice in our house like for
00:33:42.480years we were like just get more magnet tiles or more of the other thing that we already have
00:33:47.900because more of them actually just like makes it more fun for them and it doesn't like create a
00:33:52.260whole other like bucket of stuff that we need to have and on that note I would say one of the best
00:33:58.380pieces of advice I ever received from a parent was don't buy the cheap magnet tiles because they
00:34:04.500actually don't last very long compared to the real magnet tiles like don't skimp on the magnet tiles
00:34:10.240even though it seems expensive they are actually great and like I loved getting like the glow in
00:34:15.260the dark magnet tiles to add to the collection or the ones that have glitter or like really big ones
00:34:20.980all that sort of thing. And that's a great gift. Yeah, that's one of those ones where you're like,
00:34:25.380I regret to say that it's very worth the cost. Yes, exactly. Before we get to the advice and
00:34:31.540recommendations, we're going to answer one last question about trends. And this one comes from
00:34:35.960Jacqueline. I'm a millennial. And like many of my age, I'm shocked to see fashion coming back
00:34:41.840around to my worst high school looks. But I understand that length of cycle. But my oldest
00:34:46.780child is eight and he's on his third round of Beyblade's love. We gave away all of them when
00:34:52.000he was five after months of neglect and then had to rebuy them all when he was six. They again went
00:34:57.180into disuse and then frantically last year we re-bought a whole bunch again. Thank you Facebook
00:35:02.120Marketplace. We recently entered and exited Pokemon cards again. It feels like the length of time these
00:35:09.600things are popular for is so so short. Am I just misremembering my own childhood? Does everyone have
00:35:15.840a shorter attention span now. It's not like there are 70 new interests a year. It's the same one.
00:35:21.380Some of them are 20 or 30 years old, and they just keep coming back in these tiny little cycles.
00:35:26.820First, we have to say what Beyblades are, because so many people, including Melody,
00:35:30.700when I posted the picture of Beyblades to get questions for this episode,
00:35:34.380were like, what in the world are those things? And we bought them for our house when my friend's
00:35:41.220kids were coming over after school and we had like a whole Beyblades like rumble. Like there
00:35:46.920was like that big, like, I don't know, amphitheater for Beyblades that we had at our house. I'm not0.98
00:35:52.360very good at them. I'm very bad at them. I mean, I only recently learned about these putting
00:35:57.760together between boys gift guide for the strategist because my child apparently has
00:36:02.800not reached Beyblades phase yet. Um, however, I think there are a bunch of toys, including
00:36:09.140bay blades bakugan is another one that are like inspired by anime and they are a lot of them are
00:36:15.400like kind of like dueling toys and in this one you kind of like launch these little figurines they
00:36:21.680kind of spar against each other and um yeah they have sort of a holding power that is a little
00:36:29.480shocking to me but i i think a lot of it is attached to like the storylines that kids put
00:36:33.980on them and you know so on and so forth um okay so toy cycles i mean i have theories my theory is
00:36:42.100like you know my kids have also cycled through pokemon several times they've cycled through some
00:36:47.400of these other like i do think that like you know every generation kind of has like a handful of
00:36:51.940ones that are like like minecraft is comes and goes again and again even if kids don't actually
00:37:00.560play Minecraft they're like aware of the thing a lot of it has to do with like moving social groups
00:37:06.820right so like they will like my kids went to camp the kids at camp were just like really into
00:37:12.240Pokemon again so even though Pokemon had been dormant right they're like back in the Pokemon
00:37:16.800thing so there's a social element and then I do think like my hunch is that there's like a trickle
00:37:24.340down from social media that reaches like even smaller kids and something like a song or something
00:37:31.100attached to like some kind of IP property will basically come down to the playground and then
00:37:36.900all of a sudden like everyone is back into a thing so like there'll be a new Zelda game and
00:37:42.480then like everyone's back into something and I see this like in in language like a lot of kids
00:37:48.200we're like picking up slang from like among us like sus and some of the other words that my
00:37:54.220child uses and i think it's like this trickle down playground effect so my i think toy cycling
00:38:02.880is a little that i mean i don't even really understand pokemon cards like same like why
00:38:10.700are they interesting how do you play it don't know so much of it is about like categorization
00:38:18.780at least for the kids that i know there's a far they don't play each other the ones that i know
00:38:22.840they just like to collect them yeah and like talk about it and a great pleasure of mine actually was
00:38:28.800that my partner who's younger than me he was a teen tween during the first surge of pokemon yeah
00:38:36.760So he had some of like these original, what are now considered very high value cards.
00:38:42.800And so like these kids in our lives are always like, big Charlie, I can't believe you got
00:38:47.860rid of that Charizard or whatever it is.
00:38:51.200And they love looking it up on like, you know, the worth things and being like, you would0.58
00:38:55.320have $23,000 and he's hitting himself on the head.
00:39:03.120And so some of it is just like the pleasure centers of organization. And you get sick of that, right? Like you get you're like, I organized all the things. But then you remember, I want to organize those things again. Yes. Or collect more of those things.
00:39:17.300And if anything, I think television for us as millennials and for Gen X as well, it was stabilizing and desire drivers because the commercials would stay so consistent and the shows would continue on on Saturday morning.
00:39:33.260And then you'd see them on reruns on like USA or the Cartoon Network or whatever.
00:39:36.920so like care bears like i'm or um like he-man like all of these different what we now think
00:39:45.540of as ip like they were just incredibly consistent and i think kept our our desire for those things
00:39:51.340consistent in a way that like there's it's much more dynamic now yeah i also think there's this
00:39:56.300thing where like i was thinking about like when toys got released when i was a kid where like
00:40:01.600there was like the year of tickle me elmo and a year of like cabbage patch dolls and you have
00:40:07.520this like very coveted thing but it's not it's about access it's not about like whether or not
00:40:12.080anyone else necessarily sees it but if the if you're the person with access and everyone wants
00:40:16.200to go play with it whereas like now it's very much like a dip well one there's just like so
00:40:21.120many more choices and then in that like it's very much like a game of taste and taste projection
00:40:26.940in the toys that you're accessing i'm interested in like these toys like pokemon that have like
00:40:32.780such like staying power given that like it's cards right like you're like why what you know
00:40:38.440what is the play element and then and then i think there are people on the other end of the
00:40:42.860spectrum like trying to like innovate in toy making and you know technological ways and other
00:40:49.960things and but it seems to kind of come back to wooden toys and cards at the end of the day a lot
00:40:57.500of the time um which is you know maybe just because that's like how kids relate to each other
00:41:04.660yeah totally well and like no one's like why is tag still popular i know right so basic
00:41:13.020and kids like they have a time when they like are really into tag on the playground and then
00:41:19.980like no one's playing tag for a while and then they get into four square or whatever like yeah
00:41:24.240it rotates kids are fickle but they also like to do things that they know that they're good at or
00:41:29.440that like will make them seem cool yeah so I think that's part of it too for sure thank you so much
00:41:35.480for coming to answer all of these complex questions if people want to find more of you
00:41:40.020on the internet what's the best way do you think um my sub stack which is called making it work
00:41:45.080is at youngna.substack.com and my name.com is also you know my work and other stuff that I do
00:41:55.280um I also have a instagram side project called kids book recs where I recommend children's books
00:42:02.060which is the other thing that occupies my brain amazing thank you again this has been fantastic