A Child's Choice

Yesterday, Kai crawled over to a basket full of toys and picked out a stuffed Mickey Mouse. He sat and played with it for almost an hour. Natan’s chosen one since he was 2 has been a Winnie the Pooh. Bought for him by Isobel when we stopped at a Disney shop in Rome. Don’t ask why, out of everything to visit in Rome, we went into a Disney shop!

Anyway, I love Baby Pooh, but what is up with my children choosing Disney characters over all the cool design toys they have? What is it about Disney characters that make them so attractive? To me they are completely and utterly over designed and unnatural.

Out of all of the parents I know we have the fewest loud, bright, hard, plastic and cartooned toys. Also, we do not have a television. So, it isn’t that my children are indoctrinated into wanting profit oriented character toys. They have just chosen these out of all the other less mass-produced and marketed ones. At this moment I wish Kai could carry on an intellectual conversation and tell me why he picked Mickey from the basket. Then I would know the secret to design for children.

As for Mickey though I am sad to say he has already been lost. After watching Kai play so wonderfully with him. I decided to take him on our walk to pick up Natan and between the school and home he was tossed overboard. I didn’t notice until it was to late to go back. Honestly, I didn’t ditch Mickey on purpose because he comes from Disney. Lord knows NO mother in her right mind would loose a chosen one on purpose.

Natan & Baby Pooh • July 2004