Last year, Roxana Condor was trying in vain to figure out where a new Ikea play kitchen for her three-year-old?complete with a set of mini pots and pans and pint-sized felt veggies?would fit in her semi-detached Toronto house when she realized her home had been completely consumed with toys.
Collections of Lego, Thomas the Train, Duplo and Mega Bloks had expanded, in just over a decade of parenthood, into an unruly, plastic mash-up that now seemed beyond containment. Every room of the house was studded with plastic toys and craft supplies. Her children, ages 13, six and three, owned superheroes, Pokémon cards, Beyblades, markers that sparkled, markers that smelled and much, much more.
Condor blamed herself for much of the glut. She grew up in post-communist Romania and had very few toys as a kid. ?We literally had nothing,? she recalls of her childhood. ?I watched TV and wanted the Barbies and the van and all the toys, shoes and accessories.? So, when she had her own children, she was determined to give them as much as she could.
There?s a multitude of things that lead to families being overloaded with kids? stuff. New toys are easy to come by in our society?birthday parties, holidays and even good behaviour often warrant presents from the toy store. There is also what Condor calls ?the dollar store trap.? ?You take a trip to the dollar store; you buy a bunch of crap they play with for 10 minutes,? she says. Usually, we have good intentions.
?We often buy something to sho...