Re: Finding direction sucks when you don't have a compass

[Patte Rosebank]

Rick, I remember what I got for Christmas when I was five: A Fisher-Price Castle and a Fisher-Price Farm, with the Little People that looked like wooden pegs with a ball on top for a head.

I remembered this, because the other day, I read in the Toronto Star that Health Canada has issued a safety warning, urging everyone to dispose of all those old-style Little People, and not pass them on to children today, or resell them at yard sales or on Ebay. The warning was issued after a 10-month-old child choked on one of them. It seems the old-style Little People are the perfect size to lodge in a child’s throat. This is an unforgivable error in design from a company that was always known for the safety of its toys…until you consider how many millions of children played with those Little People over the decades, without choking on them. And that the Little People were never meant for 10-month-olds to play with. They were for ages 3 and up. Fisher-Price made other toys for infants and toddlers.

In 1991, the toys were re-designed with larger Little People, after 8 choking incidents. And ever since then, there hasn’t been a single recall of Fisher-Price toys for safety…

Except for all the recalls over the lead and cadmium paint on them…and the toxic chemicals used in making the plastics…and the bits that can break off and injure or choke a child…

Frankly, I’d feel a lot safer letting my kids play with my old Fisher-Price toys, than with all those new “safe” ones that are being mass-produced in China, where companies are always cutting corners to increase profits, even if it means replacing the more expensive materials with cheaper-but-toxic ones.

I wonder if that safety warning is just a ploy to get people to dump their old toys (which seem to have been built to last forever) and rush out to buy all that new made-in-China junk.

I believe in doing everything possible to protect children and to prepare them to eventually go out into the world on their own. But I think we’ve taken things way too far when we’re flying into a tizzy over toys that were safe enough for generations of kids, and replacing them with junk.

More proof we’ve gone too far with this mad desire to eliminate all possible risk: A couple of years ago, I saw a paper doll book that bore this ominous warning on the cover: “To avoid injury, remove staples before giving this book to a child.” Now, I don’t know about you, but I think that if little Johnny is unable to play with a book of paper dolls without impaling himself on a staple, then little Johnny isn’t going to last very long in this world.

(Hey, that’s something else I’m good at: pointed satirical observation—AKA smart-aleck rants.)

REPORT ABUSE