Simple Toys
The 'what's in my hand' approach to making do is nothing new. What's new is that it doesn't occur to us moderns that running to the store for cheap fixes has not always been an option. People had to make do with what was on hand, because the consumer centered materialism we've all grown up with and taken for granted was basically invented toward the end of the 19th century, and really came into its own in the 20th century. Here are a couple of toys made and played with by the 'what's on hand' generations who went before us:
When I was a little girl we would go to visit my uncle's farm, and he taught us how to make these toys that he had played with when he was little. His grandpa, I think, showed him how to do it, and we can imagine that <em>his</em> grandpa showed him. We never had a name for them, but I've seen them called corncob shuttlecocks: Really they should have three feathers, but our third feather broke off.
You don't need instructions to make one- what you see is what you get- an old corncob, three feathers, poke them into one end. The center top of most old corncobs is soft, sort of cork-like, so it's easy enough to do in most cases, and large chicken feathers, like old corncobs, abound in most farmyards.
After inserting the three chicken feathers, you throw the corncobs up into the air as high as you can- as they come down they slowly turn point down, feathers up, and spin madly on the way down. That's a lot of fun for a few throws.
Next you have contests- see who can throw his corncob rocket the highest, the farthest, or make it land the closest to a target traced in the ground.
You can break off the corncob so it's only two or three inches long and bat them around with your hand (I was too big a sissy to play this way. It hurt my hand).
And you can get really fancy and make these into darts with the addition of a pointed stick, and use them to play more involved target games and contests. We <em>never</em> did this. In fact, nobody even told us that this was something that <em>could</em> be done. I just discovered that a couple years ago when I was searching for a name for our corncob and feather toys.
To see one of these fly up in the air, turn, and twirl as it comes down vertically, feathers on top, is to want a turn to throw one. And if you have a child who would be bored by this, then perhaps you have a child with all too jaded a modern taste for being entertained rather than entertaining himself, and it's time for a little palate cleansing. Attitude, you'll remember, is half the battle in frugality.
In that more frugal age when people naturally asked 'what's in my hand' without even thinking about it, there were some toys, but there was more creativity. There was more make-do spirit than money. The people who had learned the habit of thrift by force while living on the sharp edge of poverty did not unlearn those habits when money flowed more freely.
My uncle passed away a couple years ago, leaving me a museum of sorts- the collected packrattery of three or four generations of people who never threw anything away. That's not making do, that's hoarding, and it carries with it its own set of burdens, but that's a story for another time. It's also an interesting collection of historical artifacts. I'm learning a lot about the frugalities of another age just sorting through it all.
I found two things that were poignant witnesses to this make-do spirit. In a vintage Tinker-toy can cut down to size for easy access for small hands, I found perhaps fifty newspaper cut-outs of farm animals like those pictures here. There are chickens, pigs, ducks, geese, llamas, even a sheepdog. Based on the backs of the pictures, they've been cut out of farm catalogs, magazines, and local newspapers. On the back of one is an add for white leghorn pullets, .55 cents each. On the back of the Llama is an ad for a '50 Nash for 1,195 dollars. Some of the smaller poultry cut-outs are not much bigger than my fingernail (and I don't have long nails). Somebody long gone worked hard to meticulously cut these out with a high degree of precision, and here the paper cut-outs still are, five or six decades later.
We also found an old cigar box full of similar cut outs from catalogs, magazines, and newspapers. This time the figures were all military men, between one and two inches high. Our son likes these and has asked us not to get rid of them. Packrattery reigns.
As a child I remember playing with similar toys- I would cut out pictures of people and objects from catalogs and use them as paper dolls. Sometimes I pasted them onto paper or inside a cardboard box for a dollhouse. But when I finished with them I threw them away, usually the same day, sometimes a few weeks later. I look at these small shapes cut out of a newspaper half a century ago and wonder if it's really just the packrat in our genes that preserved them, or is it thrift? Probably both- but I imagine a little boy of fifty years ago pulling out these same cut-outs to play with day after day, getting to know each one as an individual, naming the chickens and cows and returning to play with them over a period of months or even years.
My younger children have too many toys, I'm sure. And while I sometimes comfort myself with the thought that we've not been as materialistic as some, my husband reminds me that life is not graded on a sliding scale and this may be like saying 'I'm addicted to drug B, but at least I don't do drug C.'.
Our toys mainly come from thrift shops and yard sales. I'm always trying to simplify. I achieve the desired level of simplicity with varying levels of success, but I've found that I can never retire my efforts, because the toys and clutter continue to accumulate. So I find myself simplifying again and again, purging, throwing away bags of broken, shoddy, wobbly, and partial bits of toys, art supplies, dress up clothes, and other odds and ends, filling a box or two with toys in good enough shape to give away.
Once upon a time in order to help my oldest two children learn to keep their rooms clean, I took away all their toys except a box of dress up clothes, some blocks, and two dolls. I told them that if they kept their rooms tidy for a month, at the end of that month they could each choose one toy from the box to add back to their rooms. That was about 15 years ago. Two years ago we pulled out the boxes and they took out their favorite keepsakes and we got rid of the rest. They never did keep their rooms tidy, but more amazing to me is that they never missed their toys. In fact, they played longer and with more creativity with the few toys they had left than they had before. Their friends who came to visit did as well. It was amazing to see how much sustained interest they all could apply to the same play when there were few other options.
My little newspaper farm animals tell me that at the age when most of today's little boys are playing with action figures and play stations or gameboys, at least one little boy was content with a cardboard box of pictures cut out from a newspaper. I do love the computer age we live in for many things. I believe that the technology of the information age has enriched all our lives in many ways, bringing music, art, literature, and kinds of formerly unattainable wonderful stuff to the masses. I am just not sure our children's play is one of them, and consumer gluttony can't be good for any of us.
What do you have in your hand? Are your children learning to be content with that? How can you help them do better?
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4 Responses to “Simple Toys”
October 19th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Although they do have other toys, mostly my kids play with the blankets off their bed and boxes from the grocery store. Someday, I’m going to have to teach them to leave the blankets on the bed, I suppose. Or at least to remake them.
October 19th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
This is a very interesting article! When my son was 10 months old, every toy he owned fit in a one gallon white trashcan I bought at the Dollar Tree for his toybox. Three years later, his toy collection rivals the displays at Toys R Us and Target put together. Where did we go wrong? Who knows, but we’ve taken two steps in the right direction: 1. We tell friends and family at any opportunity that the kids need nothing. If they persist, we suggest books or clothing. I can always make room for a book, and clothing will serve its purpose and be handed on to another family. 2. We admit that we are the biggest offenders when it comes to inviting TOO MUCH into our home. I am proud to say that on my daughter’s first birthday last week we presented her with exactly one gift. Granted, it was a gift larger than I remembered–it’s been in the attic since I bought it on clearance 6 months ago–but we’re recovering, not cured!
October 19th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
My two children do have a lot of stuff. Since we’ve lived in an apartment the last couple of years it has forced us to pare down and we have stored some stuff. It is amazing to me that the toy my kids swore up and down they just had to have, they haven’t even missed since it’s been packed away.
We are trying to follow a rule that for every new thing our children acquire they have to be willing to give away two or three old things.
October 21st, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Are your children learning to be content with that? How can you help them do better?
I love that you brought it back to parental responsibility. Frankly, it’s a lot easier just to buy another toy.
I should know–my son’s room is overloaded with “good toys” right now. The fun seems to be in dragging them all out, not really in playing with them.
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