The Battery Powered War

The war started when my son was around a year old. It was us versus my mom (biological). Nothing new of course, she and I have been battling for years. This time it is over something trivial, toys. Now when I say battle, I mean that she flings passive-aggressive statements at me and I ignore them, because that is the key to true communication.

When my husband and I got pregnant and we were formulating all of our lofty parenting ideas, we decided that we wanted out kid to be as technology free as possible. We have conceded on the no TV idea. My husband and I can’t live without TV and we were dumb to think out kid could as well. However, we do limit the amount of time he spends sitting in front of a TV. We limit it because we want him to spend as much of his time playing as possible. The time that he will spend sitting in front of a computer and/or a TV all the time will rapidly approach, and we want for him to experience as much play as possible. However we have not conceded on our lofty idea that our son has mostly non-electronic toys, and this is where we lead into the war that my mother is waging against us.

Let me start by saying that I appreciate all the gifts that she has given us. I could spend hours listing all the gifts that she has given our son. The things that remain constant in all the gifts that she has given us is that all of the toys light up, make awful sounds, and suck batteries. I had no annoying toys that made sounds as a child, so I am not buying the whole, “I am getting back at you for the annoying toys you had”. Also I was the good child and caused no problems so I am also not going to go for the, “You were an awful child and so I am buying your child annoying toys that will suck your sanity away from you”. While the toys are not that annoying, we seem to have some fundamental differences. She likes to get him the flashiest toy possible, while we like to give him toys that are not flashy, but they are still fun. If it doesn’t do a million cool things, it’s not good enough for her. I think that she makes up for not seeing us by buying him a flashy gift. We also don’t want him to equate her with gifts.

At Christmas when we told her that we were giving him a wooden train set with a table (that we were very excited about) she scoffed at us. A toy that does that nothing on its own requires pure imagination and physical effort to play with, why that equated to child abuse to her. So what did she do, she showed up with a “better” train set, that made sounds, produced steam, and zoomed around the crappy plastic track. So let’s recap, my passive aggressive mother found out what we were getting him and then purchased something that in her mind was better. In the end the wooden train won out with our son. My mothers train set was a plastic piece of shit that ran so fast the train didn’t stay on the track and my son was utterly frustrated trying to play with it.

My mom just doesn’t get it; she thinks wooden toys are a punishable offense while we think that toys that are not battery operated allow more room for the imagination to grow. I bought him rubber dinosaurs that do absolutely nothing, and he has a great time moving them as a herd across the dinning room table. The T-rex and Apatosaurus live in relative harmony together. I love it when he makes his Chevron cars make car sounds. It makes me giggle the tractor noises he makes when he plays with his tractor in the sand box. Before we know it we are going to have to pry him away from his Gameboy and Wii, we just wanted to give him a couple of years that where he was not plugged into something.

Now Drew’s birthday is next week. She has been after me for gift ideas. I told her to get what she wants, because she is going to do what she wants anyways no matter what I say or how I feel. She has been badgering me so much that I finally broke down and gave her some suggestions; however I did get smart and did not tell her what we were getting him (more Lego’s). As expected, she calls me from Toys R Us, and she is listing off toys that she thinks he might like (like I know Toys R Us like the back of my hand, he is three and he has only been in that store maybe 5 times if that).

The result, Drew wanted a plain Lightening McQueen Car. What he will be getting is a Lightening McQueen car that lights up, drives in patterns, and sucks batteries. Drew already knows how to say “Ka-Chow” he doesn’t need a car that makes those noises. Drew has been dying for a pterodactyl that he saw. It is a plain rubber dinosaur, to go with the rest of his herd. In response to my idea she said, “But it’s ugly and it doesn’t do anything”. Yes Mom, that’s the point.