The Weird Kid
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Trying, trying not to be a Plastic Fart Sniffer
We just opened a late round of Christmas gifts from far off relatives. I removed a pack of plastic food from the gift box, all modeled on McDonald's fast-food, labeled for my daughter. I...I removed it all the way to the garage. I just can't. I can't I can't. I hate cheap plastic toys. I hate advertising for any company without being paid to do so. And I hate myself when I feed my daughter McDonald's food.
The first time I encountered the concept of trying to keep plastic out of your child's life, or at least her toy box, was in the sweet and savage periodical known as Mothering Magazine. I thought the idea brilliant, full of integrity. I remembered playing with Smudge's much more hip little cousins before she was born, and the broken plastic toys lay like shrapnel around their house. Single use toys. Like a kleenex, but so much sadder.
In Mothering Magazine I read the testimony of parents who strictly adhered to the rule. They wrote about the hard plastic, talking doll someone had given their daughter for her birthday, and what fun they had desecrating that symbol of commercialism and stringing it up as a scarecrow in their Peace Garden.
I came across the very same article four years later, after having Smudge, while shelving at the library. I sat down and reread it. Mostly. Actually I closed it, snorted at it, and put it back none to gently.
How did I miss it the first time? How did I miss...that attitude? That sanctimonious fart sniffing!!!
Someone loves that little girl in the article enough to give her a present. Someone walked the aisle of a store, held that child in their mind, and pictured her smiling and hugging a new doll. They paid for it, probably a lot, too, from the sound of it, wrapped it and delivered it. And that is worth precisely...shit? to the Mothering Magazine people. And I don't know what a "Peace Garden" is but just the sound of it sort of pisses me off.
The article is filled with indignant disappointment at family member's failure to purchase and deliver the correct gifts to the Mothering's mother's precious little snowflakes. I have felt that disappointment creeping into me...and that article made me ashamed of it.
Ah...but what about my precious little snowflake?
I am so terribly proud of the presents I got my daughter this Christmas. A Bozo clown, (plastic, but forgiven for being so wonderfully creepy) a cobbler's bench, drums, and a elegant, tiny little red piano. And, a Bilibo, completely plastic but with good reason.
And I love the person that sent the McDonald's pack. And dammit, I know they love Smudge so much. I also know they have a dozen people to buy Christmas for on a tight budget, and I know that, unlike me, their heads aren't shoved quite far enough up their butts to weigh libertarian integrities when buying a little baby a fun gift.
So they sent the McDonald's pack. It bothers me on near every level, as a toy for my daughter.
I don't want to be the Mothering Magazine fart sniffers.
I'm writing a thank you, and I mean it, thank you. Thank you for loving her, thank you for the effort. But I'm giving it to Goodwill, unopened.
That is my problem, my deal, not theirs.
The first time I encountered the concept of trying to keep plastic out of your child's life, or at least her toy box, was in the sweet and savage periodical known as Mothering Magazine. I thought the idea brilliant, full of integrity. I remembered playing with Smudge's much more hip little cousins before she was born, and the broken plastic toys lay like shrapnel around their house. Single use toys. Like a kleenex, but so much sadder.
In Mothering Magazine I read the testimony of parents who strictly adhered to the rule. They wrote about the hard plastic, talking doll someone had given their daughter for her birthday, and what fun they had desecrating that symbol of commercialism and stringing it up as a scarecrow in their Peace Garden.
I came across the very same article four years later, after having Smudge, while shelving at the library. I sat down and reread it. Mostly. Actually I closed it, snorted at it, and put it back none to gently.
How did I miss it the first time? How did I miss...that attitude? That sanctimonious fart sniffing!!!
Someone loves that little girl in the article enough to give her a present. Someone walked the aisle of a store, held that child in their mind, and pictured her smiling and hugging a new doll. They paid for it, probably a lot, too, from the sound of it, wrapped it and delivered it. And that is worth precisely...shit? to the Mothering Magazine people. And I don't know what a "Peace Garden" is but just the sound of it sort of pisses me off.
The article is filled with indignant disappointment at family member's failure to purchase and deliver the correct gifts to the Mothering's mother's precious little snowflakes. I have felt that disappointment creeping into me...and that article made me ashamed of it.
Ah...but what about my precious little snowflake?
I am so terribly proud of the presents I got my daughter this Christmas. A Bozo clown, (plastic, but forgiven for being so wonderfully creepy) a cobbler's bench, drums, and a elegant, tiny little red piano. And, a Bilibo, completely plastic but with good reason.
And I love the person that sent the McDonald's pack. And dammit, I know they love Smudge so much. I also know they have a dozen people to buy Christmas for on a tight budget, and I know that, unlike me, their heads aren't shoved quite far enough up their butts to weigh libertarian integrities when buying a little baby a fun gift.
So they sent the McDonald's pack. It bothers me on near every level, as a toy for my daughter.
I don't want to be the Mothering Magazine fart sniffers.
I'm writing a thank you, and I mean it, thank you. Thank you for loving her, thank you for the effort. But I'm giving it to Goodwill, unopened.
That is my problem, my deal, not theirs.
posted by Imez at 7:02 PM
8 Comments:
At our house we call it LPC. Little Plastic Crap. The kind that stabs you in the instep when you step on it unaware in the middle of the night.
It's okay to make decisions.
The worst present i ever saw for a toddler was a 10,000 bead bead kit. Also sent on unopened.
Ha! The fart sniffers are everywhere, believe me.
beads are kind of ridiculous...that doesn't sound like the purchaser thought very hard about the kid at all, unless they wanted the kid dead..
sari- and all KINDS, too! There are so many different things to be fart sniffer over!
The title of this post was so wonderfully perplexing to me, before I read it. I love that.
I also couldn't agree more with your sentiments about the plastic stuff. I'm trying to avoid it too, but hate to be nasty about a gift for my children from someone that loves them. So I try not to, too.
All the toys I nixed come back to haunt me. But that is me. I'm with you on the plastic ick.
despite a teensy apartment and even teensier budget, we are drowning in a sea of LPC (and BPC, big plastic crap), too.
i am hoping that when we move this summer, a lot of it will be mysteriously "lost." (i will tell the 3yo that it had to stay in massachusetts. yes, i will LIE to her to be rid of some of our LPC.)
Good decision, I wish I had been so strong. I not only spoiled my child, but have 3 sisters, 2 nieces and a mother that doted on the little prince. By the time he was 2, I still had the playpen up in the living room, but just to hold the toys The plastic crap was overwhelming...
Post a Comment
<< Home