7 Toys You Probably Shouldn't Buy
Look, we're not going to sit here and pretend to know a lot about parenting. But unless Ambras syndrome runs in your family, we can't imagine why you need to teach your 7-year-old how to shave a baby. The toy tattoo gun actually looks like a lot of fun, though.
"The 7 Most Inappropriate Products For Children" [Huffington Post] (Thanks to Daizy!)
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Comments:
That tattoo gun looks pretty cool, but the rest are very disturbing, especially the nipple tassle and the pole dancer doll.
If I never see the words "chup chup chup" again, it will be too soon.
HA! My Shaken Baby line of dolls is coming back.
I protest the inclusion of the Giant Microbes. Those guys are great! [www.giantmicrobes.com] in case you're not familiar with them. I think they're good teaching tools. I suggested one of them as a baby gift for a new mother who runs a yeast research lab - it was a hit! ([www.giantmicrobes.com])
Seems like toys to prepare girls to work in the sex industry. Pole dance, shaving the pubic area, tassels and F-me pumps. It doesn't, or shouldn't, take much common sense that sexualizing preschoolers isn't the best thing.
Now the unshaven baby looks to be an Asian product and yet it has red hair. Is the result of some kind of weird misconceptions about Westerners?
I think the tattoo toy looks fine to me. Don't parents buy their kids fake tattoos all the time? Isn't face painting a popular thing at the fair? How is this different?
@ribex: They are awesome. I also protest their inclusion because they're not really products for children. They're geared and marketed towards adults.
@ribex:
Here's the door to your body, see? And these are oversized novelty germs. That's influenza, that's bronchitis, and this cute little cuddle-bug is pancreatic cancer. Here's what happens when they all try to get through the door at once.
Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo! Move it, chowderhead! We call it, "Three Stooges Syndrome."
@ribex: I agree. Giant Microbes are awesome. My step-dad got giardia from a buffet when he and my mom went on a trip to Vegas. For XMas, I got him this little guy: [www.giantmicrobes.com] Very adorable.
It seems like it'd also be a cuter way of telling someone you may have possibly given them a STD: [www.giantmicrobes.com]
The breast feeding baby isn't that bad. I know there was a huge blow up on here about it, but really, breast feeding is normal and shouldn't be compared to toys that are overtly sexual (like the pole dance or the nipple tassels).
The nipple tassel shirt was created as satire - the creator is trying to make a point about the ridiculousness of sexualizing toddlers by taking it to an even greater extreme.
@AndrewC: I wonder how you go about interesting investors in a toddler nipple-tassle t-shirt for satire.
@AndrewC: I think that's what the stiletto heels are for, too.
As for the tattoo toy, I am seriously pissed. I got tattoo toys for my niece and granddaughter, and they didn't look nearly as cool as that one.
I got the tattoo gun for my nephew a couple years ago, it was a huge hit coming from his pierced alterna-Auntie.
@ribex: I think someone over there simply has their knickers in a wad. Barring that, methinks someone is trying to be funny and failed badly. Notice that they only included the STDs in the slide? Never mind the site has a ton of other, non-venereal microbes (including the RBC, which is one of my non-disease favorites), no mention of them having cavities or the flu, it's all about "teh sex".
'Scuse me, I'm off to roll my eyes.
So how soon until the class Saturday Night Live "Bag of Glass" toy gets offered?
'Consumer Reporter: "Alright. Fine. Fine. Well, we'd like to show you another one of Mr. Mainway's products. It retails for $1.98, and it's called Bag O' Glass. [ holds up bag of glass ] Mr. Mainway, this is simply a bag of jagged, dangerous, glass bits."'
I am personally holding out for the "Johnny Switchblade: Adventure Punk." doll for my sons...
@ribex: My favorite is MRSA, with the little cape:
[www.giantmicrobes.com]
I think these are hilarious, and as an anthropologist studying health and disease (my friend got me a TB one, because that's what I study), totally plan to get them for my hypothetical kids when they get sick. Kids have a hard time understanding the process of disease, so often think it's their fault they're sick -- I think these would help make the "germ" idea more concrete.
I love the baby stilettos, especially the leopard print ones: [www.heelarious.com]
My wife and I would have gotten a pair for our daughter if she hadn't already passed 6 months...
Ok, the "shave the baby" is an art... thing. Really, that right there is everything you need to know about "conceptual art". Anyway, I don't think you could get one as a gift for a kid even if you wanted to.
The giant microbes are awesome, and my daughter has a set of them. (Not the STDs, though. If she wanted to get them with her own money that would be ok, but I will agree that they'd be a bit creepy as a gift.)
And I'm all for the breastfeeding babydoll. I mean, seriously, any kid with a breastfed younger sibling will breastfeed their dolls. So what? Those pooping dolls, now, those we need to get rid of.
@SabyneWired:
And notice in the tattoo one they say "too bad there isn't a hepatitis plushie". There is.
@ribex: Agreed. I knitted a toy DNA for my infant (see icon or free pattern here: [kimberlychapman.com]) and by the time she was 15 months, she could identify that shape as "nay nay", and last year at age 3 when we took her to the museum and there was an enormous DNA model she cried out, "That's DNA!" and a bunch of heads turned then had to look down to the tiny, overjoyed kid.
We were very proud. There's absolutely nothing wrong with biological toys. They're fun for adults and for little kids, and if some education leaks in, so much the better.
@Scrutinizer: These are skills that every well-bred young lady should know. Singing in French and needlepoint are no longer enough to attract a husband.
I wish they would take down the part about the plush microbes. They're so cute. I have a small collection from ThinkGeek.
I have:
Swine Flu
Mono
Flesh Eating Disease
Mad Cow disease
E. Coli
@kaceetheconsumer: That's an awesome story. I may have to take up knitting sometime before I have kids...
I don't see much wrong with these. For the most part they aren't products marketed to or for children.
Poll Dance Doll - is this even real? The only source of information on it is a single photo posted on Gizmodo some weeks ago.
Shave The Baby - not a real product, it's an art piece from Poland I do believe.
Tassle Shirt - The site making and selling this has a lot of satirical childrens' and adult clothing. It's hard to imagine they're seriously marketing this as something to dress your baby in.
Baby Glutton - the box copy could use some work, but this seems like a legitimate and appropriate product and possibly even a good lead in to 'the talk.'
Stuffed STDs (aka GIANTmicrobes) - this is a product for adults (ThinkGeek even sells them). Part educational, part humor but not an inappropriate childrens' toy.
Baby Stilettos - another gag / humor / satire. They're called "Heelarious" for a reason.
Tattoo Gun - how is this more inappropriate than the lick-and-stick tattoos you get in Cracker Jacks, or "win" at Chuck E. Cheese?
I'm glad Consumerist prepended the title of this article with Funny, because it is a funny collection of things to look at. But none of them should be taken too seriously and certainly aren't "The 7 Most Inappropriate Products For Children."
@ribex: Someone gave me a giant plushie mono when I had mono. It's on the bookshelf in my living room, I love it!
@kaceetheconsumer: OMG, love your knitted DNA! So making that for my friend's baby, and it looks like a good way to use up bits of leftover yarn. Thanks for the link!
This is a joke right? No barbies on there, why is that? Oh that's right our daughters should play with a doll has an unrealistic body type and has all these amazing clothes, cars and homes, but no real education or income.
I'm pissed that they have the breast feeding doll on the their list. It's okay for our daughters to clothe, bottle feed, burp, and change a doll. Why shouldn't our daughters have an option of a doll that eats the way nature intended? Oh I forgot breasts are strictly sexual
Why were there no guns on the list? People are killed by guns everyday, but they think a simulation of a tattoo machine is inappropriate? Get the fuq outta here!
*rant over*
Wow people are touchy on the topic of breast feeding...
@squinko: I think the breast feeding doll is cute. Little girls mimick bottle feeding with dolls at a very young age and we don't think it's creepy. Little girls who are exposed to breast feeding (siblings) mimic breast feeding with dolls.
I really wish people would get off this idea that breasts have no purpose but to be happy fun bags for grown men to oogle and touch. Yeah, tits are awesome -- but at the heart of it all they are, first and foremost, for feeding infants.
@Jfielder23: Oh definitely. That was a big thing the last time it was mentioned here. Especially because people don't get upset about bottle-fed dolls sending children the wrong message. It's a disturbing double standard.
@Révolution: I bought my husband 'Herpes' for Christmas one year as a gag. The gift that keeps on giving.
On the other hand, the box does say "you shouldn't have to wait to have breasts to breastfeed your baby".
however, perhaps you should have breasts before being encouraged to think about, er, actually *having* a baby.
Shaving babies was on originally added in the planned parenting workshop. It was scrapped once expecting parents kept dropping the fake babies and kicking them wildly across the room.
@glevkoff: Are you suggesting that children, girls especially, should not be given dolls to play with at all then? That they shouldn't have even ones that get pushed in tiny strollers or will stop crying when rocked, etc, etc, until say the tender age of.. 23?
Well, it's probably true that no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American consumer. With the exception of the microbes, I'd use the rest of the toys for field goal practice.
Sorry, but you're very incorrect about at least one thing - Barbie. Proportion arguments aside, which are important but being worked on, Barbie has probably had more careers and education than any other children's toy or character.
Among other things, she's been the President, an Air Force pilot, a NASCAR driver, a CEO, a paleontologist, an astronaut, a marine biologist, an ambassador, a sign language teacher.. the list goes on and on. I get the hate for things like the Bratz dolls, but having grown up with Barbie basically hopping from dream to dream along with her, I couldn't help but step in here.
It's never to early to master the art of the Brazilian Wax.