The parent trap, by Katharine Mieszkowski

I agree with everything that Pamela Paul says. Some key bits:

“The less the toy does, the better. Everyone thinks: ‘Toys need to be interactive.’ No, toys don’t need to be interactive. Children need to interact with toys. The best toys are 90 percent kid, 10 percent toy … Doing the things that our supposedly neglectful parents did, like toting us around town, from the dry cleaner to the grocery store, that’s all incredibly informative and worthwhile for kids. It’s better to do that with your kid than plant them on the floor with a Fisher-Price learning table that has 25 noise-making buttons, while you’re checking your e-mail.

All kids need are adults holding them and singing to them and talking to them and reading to them. That’s enough. It’s not like the more you stimulate your child, the more you can sort of propel them to greater heights.

Parents have more demands on their time, particularly work-wise. There was a Census report that came out last month that said that 40 years ago 17 percent of moms went back to work within a year of having a child, and today it’s 64 percent.

What is Baby Einstein really, but a modern playpen? It’s a way to have your kid occupied, while you get to go do something else. Baby Einstein is one of the most successful marketing bamboozlings of the American parenting marketplace. If Baby Einstein had been called ‘Couch Potato Kiddie,’ and the marketing had been ‘Get your child started on the joys of watching television as early as possible,’ that would have been honest marketing, and that really is what parents are buying.

Parents are definitely more susceptible [now to this sort of exploitative marketing]. We’re more time strapped. Both parents are often working. They’re often working more than one job. Their hours are longer. When they’re home, they’re not entirely home, because they’re on e-mail, they’re on the phone, they’re on the Internet. There are so many distractions.

What that means is that we want anything that is going to make our lives easier, and it also means that we feel incredibly guilty about any moment that we’re not paying attention to our kids, or when we’re not there. What the parenting industry has done is created products and services to allegedly take care of those fears and needs.

If a parent is working around the clock to make money in order to be able to afford Giorgio Armani Bambino clothes, what kind of values are we instilling in them? At the most basic level reuse, recycle, repurpose. Question before you make any purchase whether what you’re doing is to assuage your angst, guilt and fear, and if it’s actually going to make a material difference for your child.”

Toddler T’s mother and I have had many battles about these issues. For example, she bought something called a Leapfrog? electronic book kind of thing, cost $100 or so, against my wishes. She’s a total sucker for crap like that, especially stuff that will supposedly give him “an edge,” and it strains our marriage for sure.

– via kottke.org –

Another toy that Toddler T and I enjoy playing with are his Dado Cubes. They’re cool, cheap, durable, made in the USA (or as Jimmy Swaggart would say, “New-nited States of America”), and are “Chairman Recommended.”

“Dado combines art and science as you explore architectural principles . . . proportion, balance, structure and color. A new twist on classic building blocks, Dado engages your imagination as the slits on each cube are interlocked to create an unlimited number of three-dimensional structures.”

Not an “unlimited” number of structures, but a lot. :)

I haven’t recommended a product in awhile, but Toddler T recently turned three, which reminded about one of my, er I mean his, favorite toys: Wedgits. They’re diamond-shaped plastic pieces that you can use to build some pretty cool structures. If I were pretentious I’d talk about how they “invite complex thinking and experimentation; refine spatial orientation, perceptual skills, and dexterity; and promote understanding of geometric concepts.” Frankly, T’s favorite part is kicking his creations across the room.