"outgrowing your toys"--an article I wrote some ti

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thought I'd post it here; see what you folks think of it:

"I thought it was time to tackle a generations-old belief; one that’s just flat-out accepted, though, as I see it…pretty faulty in premise. What argument, you ask, would that be?

Simply, the whole argument about “outgrowing your toys”.


Supposedly, the idea is that it’s a “rite of passage”, to leave your toys behind, as you venture into High School, College, and beyond . That’s how I’ve heard people describe the situation, anyway.

Unfortunately, every time I hear peoples’ reasoning for it, well…let’s just say that 3 AM weight-loss infomercial sounds more convincing to me.

See, I always used to wonder how it was that kids so easily lost interest in action figures (or as many insist on referring to it "outgrowing them"). I mean, I understand losing interest in something, but on such a grand scale? I kept thinking "how can peer pressure be that powerful?" Granted, many people tell me I have a certain inner-strength to stand up for what I love and believe in that's pretty much unmatched, but that's beside the point.

Truthfully, I don't think most kids were ever that into their toys, to begin with. Now, hold on for a second here; I didn't say they didn't like them at all-- I just said they were never as into them as… say… I was.

A few examples I can cite, from memory:

Back many years ago, when I was around the age of 8, I went to my friend's house after school, and was blown away by all his cool action figures...half of which I wanted, but never had. He just sat on his bed, reading something...didn't even seem to care that he had them.

For another example, my cousins got a lot of the same stuff for the holidays that I got. And while mine was proudly displayed on my shelves and taken with me when I turned on the cartoons as a kid, theirs were instead thrown in some room in the basement, downstairs, while they spent their time playing basketball, and every other known sport on this planet with their friends. Their lives were sports.
My business partner even mentioned that his cousins were much the same: they had more toys than he did, and they just didn't seem that interested in them. They had 'em, but they were just... there.

Final example- many years ago I accompanied my parents to some get-together, being held at the home of some folks we knew from a community center which we were a part of. While the adults were upstairs, the kids went downstairs to the playroom. The kid had loads of cool toys; we were all blown away by them. So…what was his response to all of it, you ask? "YOU CAN'T PLAY WITH ANYTHING! WE'RE GONNA WATCH A MOVIE! A MOVIE I WANT TO WATCH!! !! !! !! !" And you could tell, he had everything… and really cared for none of it.
I’ve even brought my case to several forums I regularly visit. I’ve heard most of the same arguments as were already mentioned, but I also heard some other ones…

One person on a forum—in fact, I believe it was the moderator—told me he was at a store one time, looking to buy some action figures, and some little kid gave him an attitude for wanting to be an adult buying an action figure. The moderator considered himself “rightly chastised over it”, to which I responded with “why do you consider yourself having been "rightly chastised?" Because society deems it so?”

Back many years ago, I used to work at movie store in a mall in New Jersey. Naturally, I brought my argument with me there, as well. I would gladly even debate my own bosses on it, and one of them even offered me a perspective that was more poorly thought out than anything else I’d heard yet: "well, when I was a teenager, my love of toys was pushed aside for a new interest- girls".

So…according to that argument, it’s not possible to enjoy more than one thing at a time. I seem to notice many people do… like cars and sports. So, you can have room in your life for cars and sports, if you like girls- but somehow toys are automatically pushed aside? There's just so much in the argument that really doesn't hold water, in my opinion. It just sounds like poorly thought out beliefs, mixed premises, peer pressure, & more.

Folks, you don't "outgrow" toys, because you can't outgrow anything…except old clothes. Your interests may change, and you might lose interest in things here and there. To lose interest on such a massive scale, however, I'm not buying it.

And it’s worth noting, toys or not, plenty of people do still have the interests they had as children. One of my former high school classmates has been into dancing since the age of 10. Oh, but she never "outgrew" that… she's still big into that. In fact, she was more into that than almost anything else. My guess is her She-Ra and My Little Pony never really excited her the way that her dancing did."

Watch Toy Story 3. It is a good example of what you're talking about here.

I already did; saw it this past weekend

Isn't it AMAZING?

not only was it better than the sequel, but it's one of the best movies I've ever seen!

Same here. I want to see it every day once it comes out on dvd.

although no...my article is not really specifically about that; you may like it all the same, though!

what about "sex toys" ?

didn't know you enjoyed those in your younger years

i was speaking hypothetically

I get the feeling that NT's generally value their possessions primarily by how others judge them. In other words, will they bring them status or not. What gave them status to own when younger will not bring them status when they are older. The only exceptions I can think of are those rare antiques which are valued in terms of money.

My collections are of things that I enjoy for their own merit. For the memories they hold for me, for example. Their aesthetic value to my eyes as another example.

That I can relate to, for when in college i would go and buy random model kits to pass the time (Zoids and Gundam). No idea what my roommates thought about it (and i did buy pains and whatnot for said kits to add that much more detail). Prior to that, I dont think i really bought any standard toys in High School . . . I was too into Magic: The Gathering and computer games to want to (those were my new toys). To this day, I haven't bought any new toys since i lived alone at an apartment (bought some of the revised Transformers, versions of ones i never had in the past). They're like and aesthetic drug I guess.

I agree with you that a lot of people "outgrow their toys" because they were never as into them in the first place.

I think that for a lot of children, the toys are not an end in themselves. They are just the props a child uses to navigate through a particular developmental stage. Once that developmental stage has been passed, the props are no longer needed.

If your connection to toys is more emotional than pragmatic (merely using them as aids in development), you will still be connected to them as you age. No child ever thinks, "I am using dolls to help me understand the adult roles I see around me. I am using Legos to develop my fine motor skills." But if that is all that is happening, rather than an intense emotional connection to the toys, it's pretty easy to put them aside once adult roles are understood and fine motor skills are developed, for example. They have served their purpose.

Long story short, I agree on "just not that into them in the first place" and am just offering my reason why.

I've got two of my toys on top of my TV set. A black taxi and a Routemaster.

I outgrew my toys on my own. I got tired of playing with them because my interest changed. How I got into toys in the first place was because they were bought for me and plus I see them on commercials and I want one of those. I was introduced to Barbies when I got my first barbie doll when I was five and then I was given a dollhouse for it and some clothes. Then for Christmas, I got more Barbie stuff and that was almost all I got for Christmas was Barbie stuff. But I got introduced to Polly Pockets just by seeing them in commercials.

I mostly had Barbie stuff and puzzles and board games growing up and there were my Polly Pockets and books. I hardly had anything else. I had stuffed animals and coloring books and movies. I played with my brother's stuff too because it was available and we had Knex and Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys and Brio Tracks and blocks.

We actually had lot of toys while today it seems like kids don't have much stuff but these families are low income is why and my parents weren't. Other kids in my neighborhood seemed to have lot of toys too.

Our parents didn't spoil us, they came from Birthdays and Christmases and we wouldn't get rid of them. However some stuff we got rid of such as lot of our toddler toys and some junk like Happy Meal Toys.

Kids get introduced to toys by TV commercials, their parents, and seeing what their friends have. But I think if they weren't into them, they wouldn't even be playing with them and they would just let it sit there never touching them. But then their interest changes because they think they are too old or they grow bored with them. Sometimes kids quit playing with stuff just because no one else their age is anymore so they stop so they don't get made fun of. But there are some that play with them in private.