Welcome to Gaia! ::

I have no qualms with toy guns. My kids will have learned proper gun safety by age 6.

I'm wondering how old a lot of people here are and how many children they've been around.

1. Just because you give your child a toy that doesn't require a lot of interaction doesn't make you a bad parent. I find that offensive. There have been plenty of times when I've sat down with my cousins or my friends kids (all between the ages of one year and 6 years) with a toy that didn't require us to do much. They are KIDS, their imaginations are constantly in overdrive. If they can make a game with no toys, and imagine anything, I highly doubt a toy that doesn't require much is going to put a damper on that. Me and my cousin Kayleigh, who is now 3, used to sit down with electric trains all the time. She always had a story about where it was going or what it was doing. She enjoyed these kinds of toys, and it in no way meant her parents were giving her them so they didn't have to deal with her.

2. I'm not really sure what's so bad about getting your kid a fake pet. Getting them a real pet to teach them responsibility is a bad idea. Most small children do not understand what death is until a certain age, and therefor cannot understand why they cannot shirk that responsibility. If you get the child a real pet (which a lot of parents simply do not have the time to take care of) and they decide they don't want it anymore, as children are prone to do, the parent is then left with caring for it. This kind of toy is an easy alternative, especially for those parents who simply cannot afford the time it takes to put into a pet. A hamster may not take much, but that's still THEIR decision. The fact that you insinuate laziness is offensive. Just because you think every child should have a REAL pet, doesn't make a person lazy.

3. A ******** deadbeat? REALLY? You want to go there?? My grandparents raised me and my two sisters. Before they were together, my grandmother raised 3 kids, my grandfather raised 4. they then, of course, raised us 3. Now they are helping my sister to raise her baby. They also run a restaurant. They used to buy us "spectator" toys. Tamagachi, Furbies, certain electronic toys. We wanted them, we thought they were so cool and amazing. I wouldn't call THEM deadbeat. You assume very radical things and you have no idea what you're even talking about. I loved my electronic toys, and I'm not exactly stupid. I don't see what the point of this debate even is. What's the harm in giving your children a few spectator toys? It's not going to make them stupid and it doesn't make you a bad parent. The only thing this topic has succeeded in is offending me.

I second Kitty and Dragoness. These toys, albeit showier than what I had growing up, don't encourage laziness. It's the way the parents present the toy to the children. And dead beat parents aren't the ones who give their children those toys.
Heck. My parents gave me and my two younger siblings toys that flashed and did tricks like those robotic shitick out today but we always incorporated it into the play with barbies and GI Joes and those little army men.

Deadbeat parents are ones who don't care for the child period. Let's make that one perfectly clear. You want to talk about making kids lazy with the new technology around what about the parents that give their children cell phones or DS's when they kids are only 4 or 5. Or better yet the parents that plop their kids in front of the goddamn noise box (TV) and leave them to watch it for hours on end without encouraging the children to go outside and play with friends or trying to read at all. (The reading is more for those who would be expected to know how to read IE grade and middle schoolers.)

I kinda think most toys nowadays are heading in the wrong direction really...

I mean look at the most successful of all time... Lego... Well that's the only one I know the actual brand-name of, sorry sweatdrop

My point is, the best toys seem to be the construction-oriented ones, even something like a chemistry set.


I got through my childhood with a bucket of K'Nex and Lego, nothing else, and I always saw people with tons of other toys like toy cars and puzzles, and always wanting more.
But with most of those types of things, like toy car tracks, there's only one thing to do with them, once you've done that, what next? Sure you can do it over again, but that can only entertain for so long...

But with the construction-oriented ones, there's always something to make or do.
This is really the only comparison I can think of, forgive me, but I think Phineas and Ferb had it down, if something isn't made to do something specific, then it can do just about anything else.

Toy cars or trains IMO are fine, but their TRACKS aren't, at least not anymore.

There's plenty of stuff someone can do with a car or train, because like I said, they aren't really designed to do something really specific, like their tracks are.

Sheesh! Whatever happened to stuffed animals?! When I was a kid I would play with my big bro with my little stuffed animals and they would go on epic adventures! I still have those little guys and I'm a writer now! So...in your face robo toys.