Childhood is not for children anymore....

More and more, I wish that I had kept more of my childhood toys. I'm glad I have some of the Lego, because now its marketed only in the specific kits... I'm glad I kept the Barbie stuff...It was always a brand, but not Supertramp, Barbie, as it is today. I wish my ex didn't have the Fisher Price toys, the ones these days are not the same. I wonder if they didn't discontinue the old ones because they had too much free play. I do wonder if one can get better, less 'branded' stuff abroad.

What brought this on? I'm reading a fascinating book called 'Consuming kids'. Kids are being marketed to from a really really really young age, under the guise of 'educational' products.

I didn't get much advertising when I was growing up. There wasn't much TV in Kuwait or Egypt, I never liked soda pop much... and our toys came from the States. But we never really were exposed to ads for Barbie, or McDonalds....

I have been amazed, the few times I've ventured into ToysRus the past couple of years, how A) materialistic and B) single-focus the toys seems to be. Barbie always had her bling, but now it seems that she has to shop for everything, and have brands...Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds.... Playdo, Lego, all seem to come in 'kits', not just simple big ' create' modes. Even at the craft store, I'm finding more and more 'pre-designed' crafts. I'll go in with an idea, a simple idea, but cannot find the simple components to do the craft my own way. Everything is over-engineered, preset to certain limits... Even Facebook!

I have more thoughts, but for now, I'll stop there.