Purging the Toys

     "Freaking toys"! I muttered under my breath as I stepped over a truck that was using the stair landing as a parking lot. With utter disgust I glanced at the over flowing bin that is suppose to corral the mess. Forging my way through the short distance from the stairs to my desk was becoming an arduous task. Safety was only a meager few steps away when my bare foot landed on top of a misplaced lego. "Mother" escaped from my lips at the same moment that I noticed my two year old grandson's presence, quick thinking changed the last word to "goose". With a sigh I plopped myself into my chair. It is a travesty when a person can not express themselves freely in their own home. Forgiveness flows through me when Gabe rushes over and offers to kiss my boo boo. Once this minor crisis is smoothed over, Gabe returns to his interrupted play of building a small city. The throbbing pain emitting from the sole of my foot drags my thoughts back to the chief cause of my distress, no not Gabe, the toys. How did two small boys accumulate enough toys to keep a large preschool entertained for months? Viewing the mountains of cars, assorted super heroes and villains, blocks, puzzles and electronic amusements one would surmise that these children are spoiled. Oddly that summation would be mostly false. The majority of the chaos has been acquired via birthdays and other holidays. Imagine if it was not!

    My children would have everyone believing otherwise but I am not so antiquated that I can not recall my own childhood. Toys were not considered a necessity. My siblings and I were not deprived nor were we showered with material possessions.  Although I have three siblings only two of those shared a bedroom with me. Joann was the eldest child in the family followed by myself with a five year gap separating us. Twenty two months divided my younger sister and me with a baby brother thrown into the mix three years later.  As the oldest, Joann was granted the privilege of having her own room. To my thinking she was spoiled. The rest of us had to make due with a limited amount of space. Thusly all our toys were crammed into one toy box. Strangely enough that one box was more than adequate to meet our needs. When a search was in progress for a certain object, that box sometimes seemed bottomless.   Imagination was our most valued means of amusement.  Wave a stick in the air and suddenly it was a magic wand, thrust at someone it was a sword, pointed towards a wall it became a pointer with a teacher grasping onto it as the wall changed into a chalk board. Our minds were playgrounds filled with endless ideas.  When did having an endless bounty of toys become the norm?

      If, by today's standards, mine was a repressed childhood, how would the childhood of my grandparents compare? Regaled with tales of the past I was fascinated with the images of the almost toy less world my grandparents inhabited. True, they originated from the Azorean Islands, which were not as affluent as America, but surely their experiences were somewhat similar to those of American children. Stories of dolls made from cardboard and cars carved out of wood scraps were passed from my grandparent’s lips to my ears. My Vovo would enthusiastically demonstrate the process of creating a toy car using a mere carrot and some toothpicks. Emphasis was always placed that the car could only be used as a play object for a short time as it was needed for the evening's meal. I wondered how far the truth was being stretched but never dared to raise the question. Old fashioned respect meant never openly doubting your elders.

       Thinking hard on the subject leads me to acknowledge that by allowing my grandsons to accumulate this wealth of play objects I am doing them a disservice. If children who possess a meager amount of toys are defined by society as being deprived than I wish that for my grandsons. Deprivation will stimulate their imagination and encourage creativity. What better gift could I grant them with? Serious toy purging is in the near future. Rest assured there is no hidden agenda. This is in their best interest.  A living room that no longer resembles a minefield is a consequence that I will have to contend with.