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Comment by cosmodisk | Hacker News Reader

It also doesn't help that 80% of toys is cheap plastic tat. There's a lot of stuff but most of it is junk. For those who reach London at some point, I can't recommend enough V&A Museum of Childhood. It's a large museum with a substantial collection of toys,some as old as 300 years or so. It has it all: from PS1 to some wooden doll house an affluent Victorian family would have spent a small fortune on. The older toys are fabulous and nicely made. I think it's probably better to have a few quality ones than some 20 transform er cars that brake after 10 days of playing with them.

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>It also doesn't help that 80% of toys is cheap plastic tat

Yes. Amazing how many people are content to makes presents of such dross to their young friends and relations.

Alternative approach: get the adult versions.

e.g. don't buy the $20 binoculars endorsed as 'educational'; get $40 dollar binoculars which last much longer and are actually useful

e.g. don't buy a plastic spade, give a gardening trowel instead

etc.

> Alternative approach: get the adult versions.

My preferred alternative is cash. Always cash for gifts. It’s better for the environment, and it’s better for the recipient. Either you’re close to the person you’re giving a gift to and know what kind of utility they will get from a gift so it’s not wasted, or just simple cash.

A reason I basically just don't give gifts is that if I prefer to receive cash, and you prefer to receive cash, then what the hell is the point of it anyway?

I remember when I was little, probably early elementary, my brother gave me $5 for Christmas. I thought that was really swell of him, so I went to my room and got him $5. In the end, what was the point of it? It didn't mean anything.

I give gifts when there is something I'm excited about giving. Otherwise, I just don't bother.

Ha!

Well, generally, it's adults (who have cash) who give children (who don't have cash) the cash.

I've never heard of siblings giving each other cash, that's really funny. :) I mean in my family, us siblings never exchanged gifts at all until we were adults with our own income. Gifts were always from adults to kids, not kids to kids.

But when I was a kid my aunts and uncles obviously didn't have a clue what I was into or wanted. Cash would be wonderful -- the whole experience of figuring out how much, what my options were, going to the store, picking something out, having it be linked to not just one but multiple family members...

Cash as a gift, for kids, is honestly pretty great. A million times better than the usual itchy sweater and socks from grandma that I could never wear, unfortunately.

> A reason I basically just don't give gifts is that if I prefer to receive cash, and you prefer to receive cash, then what the hell is the point of it anyway?

> I remember when I was little, probably early elementary, my brother gave me $5 for Christmas. I thought that was really swell of him, so I went to my room and got him $5. In the end, what was the point of it? It didn't mean anything.

This is solved by asymmetrical giving. The structure of Christmas, where everyone gives a gift to everyone else, is wrong. Compare Chinese New Year, where adults give money to children, or a Chinese wedding, where everyone else gives money to the bride and groom.

Except that kids tend to destroy things (the binoculars obviously, not a trowel), tend to be violent with and throw things (a real gardening trowel is heavy and could injure their sibling for life), and quickly lose interest in things (they forget about the $20 binoculars long before their lack of quality is apparent).

I mean it depends on the ages of your kids... but there are very good reasons most toys are cheap plastic. It didn't just happen accidentally. It's a feature, not a bug. (Except for landfills, of course.)

It seems like the most responsible choice as a parent would be to buy fewer, more durable toys. But is that a realistic expectation?

i don't know if it's a realistic expectation for everyone but i absolutely loathe getting new toys because with the exception of lego and compatibles and a few other constructable toys and plastic animal figures none of toys we ever got survived beyond a few weeks.

i once bet my son that the toy he wanted so badly would not survive two weeks. and if i won, he'd have to promise me to never ask for junk toys again, but focus on lego and compatibles.

the toy survived 3 weeks.

That sounds like a great way to teach your son the meaning of value, nice work :D

and it seems to have worked. we were looking at toys in passing. and when i pointed out the quality of the material of one particular toy that he was looking at, he agreed, and said he didn't want it anyways.

he may soon be ready for a new brick set then...

Except my toddlers like to hit each other with toys and I’d prefer not to have their head caved in with a metal shovel.

Ironically WRT tiny shovels, kids plastic toys are made to fall apart for about $10, real plastic adult spades that last forever run about $5, and adult metal spades designed to rapidly fall apart cost $15. If you're willing to pay $30 you can get a dewitt that your kids will inherit, but it'll be ugly and heavy...

There's a different problem for binoculars, Thomas the Tank Engine binoculars will cost $20 for licensing, no name but optically superior adult binocs will be $30. Of course the $400 Steiners are worth it if you're actually going to look thru them, or if you spend thousands of dollars to get somewhere to look thru them it would be nice if they actually work.

Even from the '80s to now, things have changed. The early transformers involved very heavy plastic and some die-cast metal construction. Later ones were more elaborate and poseable but also involved much thinner material and no die-cast metal parts.

Yep I remember I had a Voltron toy that was die-cast metal. It was heavy and would have probably lasted for decades (it went to goodwill at some point).

> cars that brake after 10 days of playing with them.

They call it self-driving, it’s all the rage.

Or they don’t. Which is an even bigger problem.

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