Toys For Us

Sometimes the findings of a survey are funny, sometimes informative – but often times they are absurd. Like the results of one I heard on the radio a while ago, which found that a vast majority of parents think that the toys they grew up with, were better than the toys their children play with now.

 

This statement hit me like a freight train - as if someone had just published the result of a survey which found that most people believed that the world was flat! It was ludicrous and complete nonsense! Unless the respondents all grew up in a secret NASA facility with access to an advanced arsenal of toys, I cannot see how they can agree with such a statement!!

 

Being a father of two I have always envied my children their toys. Every time we bought any for them - the first thought would be my fervent wish that I had the same while growing up.

 

If your memory needs a bit of a jolt - let me list some of the toys we grew up and played with:

Heavily chipped and taped cricket bats, 

Wooden badminton rackets that would warp if not kept in their brackets,

Odd assortment of balls,

Marbles,

A table tennis paddle,

Plastic guns, and

Tops (when was the last time you saw a kid play with a top?).

 

We used to make or create our own figurines or weapons from the assortment of materials (sticks, branches, strings etc.) available, which were given life-to by only our imagination. Our eyes would scour the grounds for twigs that resembled knives, guns or slingshots, and if we chanced on one, it would be tucked into the waistband of our trousers for the next few days.

 

Most of us had never set foot on a tennis or squash court.

 

If we were lucky, and our parents could afford it, we had steel wheeled roller skates that jarred you to your bones, or an overused bicycle with a twisted handle that one had to tilt to one side if one desired to go straight. 

 

Oh, and hardly anyone I knew had 'all' of the above. Most of these were shared by friends, as and when needed - which meant that any disagreement resulted in a ban from accessing these precious resources.

 

And we have the gumption to compare those to skateboards, geared mountain bikes, PS3's and Xboxes? What a laugh! Even professional sportspeople of our day were not kitted out the way an average middle class kid is kitted out now. See the way a five year old comes to the football pitch on their very first day - branded t-shirt, matching shorts, and football shoes with shin pads thrown in. See the same kid on a bicycle and you would think they were training for the Olympics - with helmet, elbow and knee pads, on a bicycle that has more features than a car.

 

Come on! Let us give credit where it is due.

 

The toys our children grew up with are so much better than the ones we had, that any comparison is not only unfair, but insulting. Any of us would have given our left arm and a leg for a small fraction of the toys that kids now have and take for granted. Forget that - we would probably have fought to the death for any one of their discards.

 

If you are however talking about the amount of 'fun' we had - then we have an argument. If you feel that the adventures of climbing and falling off trees with friends was more fun than killing your friends' avatar in an online gaming portal – that then is a thought we can debate about.

 

If you believe that hanging out with friends on the roof of a dilapidated building waiting for your clothes to dry after a sudden squall, is better than exchanging Selfies on Snap-Chat - then you have me nodding in agreement.

 

If you vehemently feel that hanging out and laughing over shared memories with pals over tea at a roadside canteen, is better than exchanging LOL’s over BB Messenger - I absolutely agree.   

However now we are changing tack and talking about the communal interface that our toys (or actually their lack of) enabled. We are on a totally different subject altogether. We had no option but to create games that enabled social interactions and in so doing enhanced our enjoyment. The entire fabric of our childhood existence was created around this vacuum of options for individual entertainment. The only thing worse than being a wimp (or a nerd) was being alone.

 

But our TOYS being better?? Come on!!