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Lasting Toys for Boys

No matter how well-constructed they are, many toys these days seem to have a shorter shelf life than most vegetables! The toy your child pleaded for in the weeks running up to Christmas, can be discarded on Boxing Day and never looked at again. And all parents know how disheartening and frustrating that can be.

It is impossible to force your child to play with a toy in which he is no longer interested. Two years ago, when we moved abroad to France, I handed my son a small box and told him to select a handful of toys he wanted to take with him. The rest were to be donated to a charity shop. He was appalled at the thought of giving up any of his precious toys, despite the fact that he played with only a quarter of them.

Being faced with international moving France or anywhere else, is an excellent exercise in taking stock of accumulated clutter. Eventually the ten thousand Lego bricks were returned to their boxes and put into the charity shop bag, along with the Transformers Ultimate Bumblebee, the bionic eye, the broken Disney video cam and the numerous construction kits and puzzles, all once toys he claimed he would treasure forever. Two years on and I honestly believe my son has not given any of them a second thought.

This made me wonder which toys were endearing to children. Lego has been a best-seller for decades, yet boys seem to grow out of putting little bricks together long before they stop receiving the kits. For girls, perhaps the best selling toy ever was the Barbie doll, but even these get traded in annually for newer models. Perhaps we adults need to accept that we live in a disposable age.

What my son chose to keep were several traditional board games and his games console and collection of games. And when I asked him recently if he ever had any regrets, his answer was a big, emphatic, 'No!'

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