As I browsed the aisle of the baby section at a local store, I realized something unusual, the lack of color. Once where there were toys of bright primary hues, now shades of grays and browns dotted the aisles. Wooden toys replaced the hard plastic that my children had grown up with, toys that were easy to clean and bright enough to wake up any child’s imagination. I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised, as my own son and daughter-in-law chose subtle colors for their nursery, but still I was awakened to the fact that things were different.
I’m sure if we all really thought about the generation having babies right now, we would notice that everything that was old is new again. Think about it for a second… wooden toys, old fashioned names, and organic food. This generation is the replica of my grandparents – those born in the early 1900’s. How is this possible? My grandparents had lived long lives, and still they were not alive for my children to know them. So how does this generation know about toys without color, food without preservatives, and names so old they’ve almost disappeared from family trees?
It’s like everything in this world…marketing is the answer, advertisers who decided to reach back into history to recreate the past – making it new again. They have somehow connected with a whole generation of new parents, guiding them into the belief that what they grew up with was dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. I’m not going to argue this line of thought because there is some validity to it. But still… a world without color?
Kids Toys and Colors ~ FB
As a retired teacher I have seen hundreds of children over the course of a twenty year career. The biggest change I saw was the increasing number of special needs students. Where once I may have had one student in my classroom when I started, I finished my final year with 14. The numbers were becoming a concern
, and looking forward, I knew the data would only increase if there weren’t some kind of change. Slowly I noticed more and more parents changing their children’s food habits – moving to organic foods that held no preservatives.
Now as I walk the baby food aisle, I am surprised at the array of organic foods. Clearly, food manufactures saw the change in parents, as well, and began producing whole foods, food that our ancestors fed to their children. Today’s parents don’t seem to care about convenience, they are willing to sacrifice their time for their children’s health…some even going as far as making the food themselves. The question is, will this truly make a difference in the long run?
Perhaps the most surprising in all of this “what’s old is new again” is the return to wooden toys. I have to admit that I played with wooden toys when I was a child, but that’s because that is all we had. But to bring wooden toys back into a world of color and technology seems a bit shocking. And when I say wooden toys, I mean toys without paint. No toxic paint to eat at the lining of a child’s stomach or mess with their brain development. But does this mean that I’m messed up? Because the toys I played with had paint on them, and I’m sure I put them in my mouth. And with 
these wooden toys will parents return to dolls that have no gender or color? My grandmother played with corn dolls and stockinette dolls. Clearly, these dolls would be socially correct in today’s society.
And what about the old fashioned names? Eli, Eleanor, Benjamin, Clarissa, and Rebecca… all conjure up an old world where ethnicity didn’t factor into every day conversation. This seems odd and counter intuitive to the reason this generation is choosing to return to the past. Perhaps parents just think an old name is symbolic of a simpler time. However, I doubt my depression-living grandparents would think their lives were easier.
For me, the jury is still out on whether the shift to return to the past is the best course of action for our newest generation. I see some positive aspects to the decisions being made, but I also see some that may result in the negative. I still believe that a child should have bright colors in their world, names that are just as unique as they are, and food that inspires them to go in search of its origin.
Parents, like all parents throughout history, do the best they can while they are in the moment. This generation is no exception. I’m certain in twenty years they will look back and think about their decisions and know which ones they got right. I’m hoping they know what they’re doing…our world is counting on them.
