Monday, August 9, 2010

Conflicted

I thought I had sort of (not really) started to overcome my indecisive nature. I had pretty much convinced myself that there were very few things I felt conflicted over. More and more recently I am realizing that's not really true. Aside from my recent uncertainty about zoos, the biggest struggle I am having deals with toys. Yes, I will tell you why.

At some point I went and got pretty crunchy. I mean, I am nowhere near as crunchy as some, but I have feelings about things environmentally that are fairly recent and new to me. I guess that's what happens when you actually educate yourself. Anyway, more and more I struggle with buying toys brand new. There are SO MANY toys out there. Big, huge plastic ones that get thrown into landfills somewhere down the road. I told myself after Lila's first birthday party that I would make an immense effort to buy toys second hand (or third or fourth). I am already a sucker for consignment sales, but initially I only thought to go to them for clothes. Most of Lila's clothes to date have come from my cousin (thank you Laura!).  I mean, spending $30+ on a dress for a 6 month old that they will wear once (maybe) is just absurd no matter how much money you have.

Toys are a little different though. Clothes at consignment sales (and hand-me-downs) can often stay in very good shape simply because a lot of them are only worn a few times! You also have the option to really weed out the crap and still end up with some fabulous stuff. Toys on the other hand take a beating. They have usually been used by multiple kids. While they may be current, the ones at consignment sales usually look kind of scary.

So where's the conflict? Well, you can't really wrap up a second-hand toy at Christmas. I guess you could, but that just seems silly. New toys have a certain amount of excitement and thrill that I remember feeling when I was a kid. Lila, of course, isn't aware of a lot of this yet. But I would like to begin teaching her early on that having a million brand new toys is not only not an option for us, but it is not necessary or environmentally friendly either. Don't get me wrong. There will be and have been many new toys here. I'm just saying, I would like to make strides towards buying gently used toys in the future instead.

There may come a day where I eat my words because I've had 5 kids and I just need more toys to calm the brood...hopefully by then I will have written a best seller in my free time and my kids won't need toys because we will be traveling the world as a big, gigantic family. Stranger things have happened.

4 comments:

  1. I definitely think it comes with kids. You want whats safest for them, and it kind of grows from there. I feel ya.

    Oh, and Marlee got a second-hand dollhouse from Santa. I prefer to call it vintage ;)

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  2. Thanks for posting so much lately, I enjoy reading! :)

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  3. I give you props for all of your "crunchy" ideas and actions. I think Lila (and any future brothers and sisters) will grow up all the better for it!

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