The only difference between men and boys is the price tag on their toys. Never realized how true that was, until I had a son. He's barely over a year, but he's already displaying the bam bam-style destructiveness and curiosity that has me eagerly browsing Amazon for the next way him and I can piss off mom while of course me blaming it on him. Turns out, shit for kids nowadays is a lot more elaborate than when I was growing up. He already has his first classic car. Meanwhile, I had one of these fuckers until the garbage man accidentally took it out of our yard by mistake. I think I was like 8 by then. When I was growing up, if we wanted to play with bubbles we got one of those shitty tiny plastic bottles with the little hoop thingy you blow into at the dime store and learned the hard way that soap doesn't taste very good but that it's surprisingly fun to spit into your siblings' eyes. Now, there's fucking bubble bazookas. Nerf guns were all the rage when I was younger, even though they were more accurate and powerful if you simply threw the darts by hand at your target (your parents WILL find out if you pushed thumb tacks through the end of them, and you WILL get grounded; just sayin'). Now, wanna have a nerf gun fight? Well bring your A-game, bitch. This shit is enough to put schools on lock down. Focus: What toys did you have growing up that have been vastly improved? Bonus points if you have already purchased them for old time's sake. Alt. Focus: What toys did you have growing up that have been "improved" to the extent they're totally worthless/laughable now?
My 1 year old nephew plays some baby game on my sister's iPad. These kids will grow up in a world where tablets and handheld devices are just another thing that exists. I couldnt conceive of something like that when I was a kid in the late 80s and early 90s. I had a Sega Genesis and our family had a IBM 486 with Windows 3.11 on it. Our TV had 11 cable channels, and we had a special box my dad got from some guy he knew that we could unscramble the Disney channel, which was a premium channel back then. Playing with anything technological at a young age was fairly exotic back then, now its common place.
This is current on Toys R Us website: For some reason, that is labeled as "Classic." WTF, classic my ass. It's made of plastic. This is what I had: Are those sharp, metal edges, you ask? Damn right. Also, do "playgrounds" count as toys? Because now, most places required 4" of soft surface, like sand or mulch. That's a nice improvement I'd have liked to have had when falling flat on my back, trying to jump out of a swing. Although, I did learn what it feels like to get the breath knocked out of me, and that eventually I would breath again. Useful for football later on.
Speaking of playground - those sheet metal, reflective slides in the middle of summer. Oy vey did my legs get burned on those things. But Ill be god damned if I didnt go up there and go down again.
Go to the Toys R Us website and search "Power Wheels"... 63 different models that carry 2 riders, 142 that carry one rider, 227 models priced over $100. You can get a tiny electric child's car based on almost any adult vehicle, from an Audi to a Z4 roadster. A to fucking Z. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, but when I was growing up there were only a few choices... Jeeps of varying colors and ATVs of varying colors were the most common. I had a three-wheeled police motorcycle that always seemed to have a dead battery.
Remember the original line of Transformers? Those were dye-cast METAL. You could kill someone with those suckers. They felt like the actual robot, made noises like real gears cranking. Stepping on one or dropping it on your foot was very real and very painful. Plus most of them were legitimate Rubix cubes to actually "transform." This Focus will have a hard time if you discount anything that isn't computer game based. Because everything is plastic garbage now. Kids need to get hurt a little. Right of passage. This delicate snowflake bullshit is disgusting. Rub some dirt in your scraped knee and keep tossing the ball. I am all for kids having access to electronic devices. The sooner they integrate that into their life the better, because that kind of technology is already ubiquitous in home life, all avenues of work life next, and will have mutated into something none of us can comprehend by the time 2040 rolls around.
Actually, current licensing standards require AT LEAST 1 foot of fall zone material underneath anything a child can potentially fall from (and because they can climb on damn near everything, that means fall zones everywhere). Depending on your local zoning ordinance, sand usually does not qualify as a "fall zone material" because it does not cushion falls. This is the latest trend in fall zones. It's basically a gigantic, upside-down egg crate made out of bits of recycled tires. I've seen licensing reps stick a ruler in the ground and if it hits solid ground the school gets written up as "high risk." Also, you have to have a clear 7-foot fall zone radius around all structures. My son has grass to fall onto in the backyard. Nothing like a broken bone to teach you not to do stupid shit.
Nothing like paying for a kid's broken bone for a parent to learn not to let that happen again. I do think that maybe in some ways we have gone too far on child safety, but some of these standards do make sense to me and make me wonder why they were not around when I was a child. Of course when I was a child seatbelts in autos were not required. Focus: Almost forgot, meh I could mention lawn darts but that is too easy. I have in my possession a squirt gun that is an exact copy of a MAC-10. When I was a kid of about 30, my buddies and I thought it was great fun going around the neighborhood shooting each other up with water. I will try and get a picture of it later.
How timely... PHOTOS: The 2015 Toy Hall of Fame Nominees http://www.khq.com/story/30133992/photos-the-2015-toy-hall-of-fame-nominees