[music]

Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin filling in for Brian today. If you have kids or have interactions with parents, there's one thing that they may complain about a lot. Their home has too many toys. Toys are everywhere in the child's room, the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room, and they just keep coming. Even when it seems like you've made headway with decluttering, more toys just seem to appear. With the holiday season, even more are guaranteed to enter homes.

Over the last few decades, the number of toys kids have has slowly increased, but recently, the number has skyrocketed. According to CNN, since 2019, there has been a $5.7 billion increase in the amount of money we're spending on toys. This means that today's kids have more toys than ever before. While tons of toys might not seem like such a big deal unless you are the person charged with tidying and organizing all those toys, studies show that kids might actually be better off with less stuff.

Recently, Vox reporter Anna North wrote about what's causing the toy tidal wave and how it's impacting kids. Anna is a senior correspondent for Vox and author of their Kids Today newsletter. Hey, Anna, welcome to the show.

Anna North: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, especially you parents, the holiday season is almost here. How are you all planning to declutter your spaces for incoming toys? What tips do you have for other parents or guardians who may be struggling with how to handle all this stuff? Are you asking the grandparents to give gifts besides toys? Give us a call or text at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Also, does anyone want to shout out a toy that is worth the real estate it takes up? What keeps your kids entertained? Call or text 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.

Anna, it seems that your story may have been motivated by your personal experience with toys filling your house. You even mention finding a pink plastic rat in a drain. This feels very familiar to me as well. Can you tell us a little bit about how much toys run your house? How bad is it?

Anna North: Yes. I'm actually currently speaking to you from my children's room because it's the quietest room in the house, and the situation in here is pretty rough. The stuffed animals are out of control. Now, I love Legos, and we'll talk about that further, but the Legos are certainly dominating the space. Really, the pink rat, I think, is emblematic of the situation in the bathtub where my toddler brings many of the other toys throughout the house and they just take up residence there in a way that can frankly be disturbing.

Brigid Bergin: I mentioned before, there's been a huge increase in the amount of money Americans have spent on toys. What seems to be the main reason for this uptick?

Anna North: We started to see an uptick right around the pandemic. Obviously, a lot of families were stuck at home with their children and needed to find ways to entertain them inside the house. There was a big jump in toy spending in 2020 and 2021, and we've seen that spending go down since then, but it has not gone back down to pre-2020 levels.

The toy industry expert I talked to kind of did not believe it ever would. We may have settled out at this higher place. It's also worth noting that just volume-wise, so toys are actually, by some measures, cheaper than they used to be. There's been, at least by some measures, some actual deflation in the toy market. You can get more toys for the same amount of money, which contributes to the problem of just having way too many.

Brigid Bergin: I think, in your piece, you wrote that a toy that cost $20 in 1993 would retail for just $4.68 today, in part because of lower production costs as manufacturing has moved overseas. That is such a shocking statistic. Do you think it's the cheap prices that it's encouraging people to buy so many more toys?

Anna North: I think that's part of it. I experienced this in my own life. We're out, and my older kid is like, "Oh, I want that thing." If it's $35, of course, I'm going to say no. If it's $4, am I tired that day? Am I tired from the number of times I've already said no? Am I going to cave in and hand over $4? Maybe. Then, of course, it's in the house.

I think we can look, too, just at sort of how easy the process of purchasing toys has become. You used to have to, in my day, go to a toy store and buy the toy. Now, of course, a huge, huge share of toy purchases are online. It's just so easy to click a button and have toys arrive at your house. I think this is a huge-- kids also know this. Your older kids will be like, "But you can just order it." Then this also really contributes to the influx.

Brigid Bergin: I want to go to the phones. Let's go to Charles in Nassau County. Charles, thanks for calling.

Charles: Yes, sure. Can you hear me okay?

Brigid Bergin: We can hear you. How have you managed the toy tidal wave?

Charles: The gist, and to keep it concise, as I was asked to do, is simple is better and fewer is better. Keep them away from the screens and the phones. My brief story is, as a New York City paramedic, I was able to drive around the streets of Manhattan. We were mobile. I found an elementary school evidently that was closing. They had put out a huge box of simple building blocks. Wooden, simple blocks, no colors, just wood. All different sizes and shapes.

I have two children. One's 18, one's 6. When my son was 4 or 5, he played with those blocks until he was about 14. Now my daughter is playing with them. The gist of it is simple is better. It's about their imagination and letting them run with it. The old adage, give the child a cardboard box and they will play for hours.

Brigid Bergin: Charles, thank you so much for that call. We've got several texts that have come in. A listener writes, "I work with small children as an educator and therapist, and I can tell you with 100% certainty, less is more. Get on the floor and play with your kid and those toys, and you will see remarkable strides in all areas of development."

Another listener writes, "Blocks, simple art supplies, and dress-up clothes leave room for imagination." Another listener writes, "Children's books are the only gifts we give. They can be read, loved, and then passed on, and more environmentally friendly." Finally, we have one more. A listener writes, "We always ask for experiences for our children."

There you go, some alternatives to the stuff. What we find still, Anna, is that even when we tell some of our family members, the grandmas, the aunts, the uncles, that we don't want the things, they still feel compelled to give the kids toys. Why do you think that is?

Anna North: I think this is so complicated. I really don't want to put extended family members, grandparents on blast here because I think they're acting out of wonderful love. It's true that kids like opening things. My children like opening things. My children like the toys they receive for the most part.

I think it's complicated, but I also think this is an area where, again, we see that frictionlessness. People who might not live near their extended family members, it's so easy to send them things. It can be harder to send an experience. That can be difficult. I'm not against sending things. I think we just have to think about what are the kinds of toys that, as many listeners have talked about, what are the kinds of toys that really stick with kids and that they play with over time?

Brigid Bergin: You write that there may be some other influences. YouTube and even TikTok seem to be part of the reason people are buying so much stuff. What do you see happening there, particularly when it relates to buying kids toys?

Anna North: Absolutely. I think kids themselves are getting messages about toys in many different ways than folks who are maybe in their 30s or 40s did when we were children. There's not just TV advertisements, which are obviously different now, but there's YouTube, there's TikTok, social media. YouTube unboxing videos have been a thing for many years now. At this point, there's actually a television show that is based on unboxing videos. It's actually not a bad show. I kind of like it, but then there's spin-off toys from that show. You can see the enormous ecosystem of sort of toy messaging that kids are just swimming in now. I think it's much more complex than some adults might remember.

Brigid Bergin: A lot of this seems to fall in line with an overall trend and overconsumption. Did you get to the bottom of why we're buying so much stuff in this piece?

Anna North: I think one thing that I have been thinking about a lot over a couple of years is not just why we're buying so much stuff, but what is the problem? Other than I don't want to step on toys, why don't we want to have? Why don't we want to be drowning in toys? I think there's a couple of reasons. I think one is just economic. Even if they're cheaper now, toys cost money. Not every family can afford the hottest toy. Research does show that people feel pressure and adults will even forego important bills for themselves in order to buy trendy toys for their kids.

There are those pressures that are very real. Of course, there's environmental issues. Toys being shipped around the world cost fossil fuels, costs fossil fuels to make plastic toys. There's lots of reasons, I think, why we need to be thinking about this overconsumption. When it comes to causes, something that's so interesting is the toy expert I spoke with said that adults consuming toys for themselves is a big part of the market now.

I think there may just be some anxiety on the part of everyone and this desire to feel like if you buy more things, maybe it sort of soothes you for a second. If you buy things that you remember from your childhood, maybe it soothes you for a second, but then you're not going to be soothed when you step on it in the night.

Brigid Bergin: Anna, with the holiday season fast approaching, do you have a single tip for parents who want to avoid that clutter? We have about 15 seconds.

Anna North: Blocks are great. I think your listener was spot on. Research shows that these kinds of toys promote creativity. They allow kids to do lots of different things, and they're not going to get tired of them as quickly as they are with some other toys.

Brigid Bergin: Well, we're going to have to leave it there for today. My guest has been Anna North, VOX reporter. You can read more of her work at vox.com. Anna, thanks thanks so much for joining us.

Anna North: Thank you.

Brigid Bergin: I'm Brigid Bergen, and this is The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Brian will be back on Monday. Stay tuned for All of It.

[music]

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.