YO MAMA: Why I’m not buying any more toys

It was a beautiful day for an outdoor playdate; sunny but not too hot, the toddlers adorably chin-strapped into their little bucket hats, feet tucked into baby Crocs and Converse runners. I divided my time between eating snacks and making sure my kid didn’t fall down any stairs.

The backyard was like a mini theme park complete with a slide, swings, playhouse, toys galore and even a toddler-sized toy quad.

But all the kids wanted to play with was a giant dirt pile. They were scooping it into buckets, sifting it, forming it into patties, smearing it everywhere. The bigger kids were climbing it. From ages one through five, every child there was drawn to The Mound. The mom had brought it in for her garden but explained that it had quickly become the most popular attraction in the backyard.

Which brings me to my latest parenting epiphany: Why buy toys at all?

I can give my toddler an awesome new toy truck, and he will inevitably play with the dirt around it instead.

Colourful new balls? Dirt.

Bubble wand? Dirt.

Toy train? Still dirt.

If there is no dirt available, rocks will do, particularly the choking kind. Sticks — the pointier the better — are equally sought after. Combine all three and your child will enter a state of bliss. Add water and you’ve got toddler nirvana.

My son’s disinterest in actual, bonafide toys is felt equally indoors. There are no sticks, rocks or dirt — OK, there’s probably a little dirt — but there are still many things far more tantalizing than proper store-bought toys. These days, my son’s toy bin looks like the sad, discarded cast of misfits from Toy Story 3.

The toy aversion began in earnest when he started crawling. It was then that he developed a new mission in life: Get to the nearest hazard as fast as possible. Do not stop. Only look back to see if mom is watching. He was no longer stranded on that horrible blanket-island that mom filled with baby toys and could instead freely roam the Land of Life-Threatening Objects.

Suddenly, he was only interested in things that could bonk, maim, pinch or zap him. He stalked rogue cords and cell phone chargers, probed walls for things that could be reached and pulled down. If a door was left open he would race to it and before you knew it he would be trying to slam his fingers in it, a gleeful grin on his face. The ultimate objective? Getting into the dog’s water bowl and bucket of kibble.

With these new dangerous wonders at his fingertips, he lost all interest in his nice, child-approved toys. Anything soft, stuffy, or otherwise safeguarded held no allure. All those colourful blocks, so perfectly and precisely sized to prevent choking, those teethers made of the finest non-toxic silicone? He wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole (he would, of course, want to wave the pole around maniacally.)

From time to time I daydream of a toy so well-designed, so eye-catching and engaging, that my son might find it worthy of his attention. Let’s be honest, every parent has, at one time or another, considered spending any sum of money on any toy that would occupy their child for 10, maybe 15 minutes. But here’s the thing, that toy does not exist. Marketing companies will make you think they hold the secret weapon to your reclaimed productivity but the joke’s on you: Your kid would still rather play with dirt.

And here’s another perplexing mystery: I don’t know how he knows, based on his extremely limited life experience, but my kid can easily differentiate between toys and grown-up paraphernalia. I can place two objects side by side, say an interactive sensory toy and a kitchen ladle, and he will go for the non-toy every time. Of course, I think this makes him very special and advanced.

In my attempts to stay one step ahead of my toy-hating boy genius, I’ve started casually leaving out non-toy items that I don’t mind him playing with, like metal bowls, Tupperware containers, pots and pans. But I have to be careful he doesn’t see me placing them on the ground; if he does, the item is instantly categorized as dull and boring, a mental file folder that cannot be undone.

If only someone had told me not to waste my money on toys (I do vaguely remember something about cardboard boxes being much more fun than the gifts that come inside them). Would I have listened? Maybe. Probably not. Like so many parenting epiphanies — and life lessons in general — you kind of have to see it for yourself. For me, the message was spelled out in bold, mud-brown letters all over the front of my son’s overalls — all you really need to please a kid is dirt.

— Charlotte Helston gave birth to her first child, a rambunctious little boy, in the spring of 2021. Yo Mama is her weekly reflection on the wild, exhilarating, beautiful, messy, awe-inspiring journey of parenthood.

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