From us, for Christmas, grandson Zach will get a Bob the Builder talking tool bench and helmet, plus the optional toolkit. I know… but you’re wrong. I had nothing to do with a decision cooked up between my wife and my daughter.Nor do I know what a talking tool bench will say. However this bizarre present has set me thinking about how children perceive the real world and how they express this perception via their preference in toys. My toy-receiving years neatly coincided with WW2 when the few toys available were made of wood or lead. An alternative was something second-hand. I well remember disdaining a pitifully crude wooden Spitfire in preference for a used Dinkey toy. Why? Because the latter looked more realistic.
Later it was all change. As one of three brothers I found myself father of two daughters. I was adrift, faced with Barbie dolls and such. Barbie wasn’t realistic, though a model kitchen stove, bought later, was. But was the stove played with, did it appeal? I can’t remember. The situation became more blurred when my younger daughter developed a crush on the late F1 driver, Gilles Villeneuve, and requested a series of ever more authentic model Ferraris.
Given the way my life evolved it’s perhaps not surprising I wanted realistic toys. And perhaps this is a lad’s thing. Many young girls seem to prefer soft toys. Is this a girl’s thing? But is a doll’s house – a phase many girls pass through - a step towards realism?
For the record my other grandson, Ian, aged 24, has asked for a subscription to New Scientist but I think we can safely say he passed the floppy bunny vs. remote control helicopter dilemma some years ago.
