By ESTHER RAMOS
How is it that we still seek to comfort our inner selves by heaping toys upon our children? Toys for Tots. Wonderful! How about a reasonable pair of constructed shoes for these tots so they grow up with strong straight feet? Maybe a crisp white dress shirt for tots along with every toy? You know? Something that will still be useful after the toys are forgotten in a box, or broken, and the packages are ripped to shreds.
How about a book. Let’s include an age appropriate book with each toy. Teach these tots how to hold their attention spans long enough to hold and to read a book. Also, how to care for books. I know. Nobody reads books anymore. I also know we’re too attached to our coal fire powered tablets, eBooks, computer programs, etc, etc. And don’t bother protesting this statement. Where do you believe the power in your house comes from? It’s not magic.
Or square meals for tots. More than just during the holidays. Basic food for tots would mold strong, straight youth without weak joints and diabetes and cholesterol off the charts and through the roof.
I was a tot without toys. I didn’t like it, and was jealous of children who got toys. I also didn’t have real food every day. We had too many dairy products because we had a cow and we had wonderful homemade white bread. The problem is that it was a dietary staple in our home instead of a side dish. We had strong bones, but we were all lacking in other nutritional areas. And we were hungry a lot. But it was in the privacy of our home.
What really bothered me, as a child, was not having anything to wear that was mine first. I wanted something new to wear. Not fancy. Just new. All of our clothes were second or third hand, or made of cow feed bags and flour sacks. And my brother Gary went for months without any shoes at all, while mine were on my feet, but more than once were held together with black tape to cover the holes in the sides and to stop the soles from flapping.
Yes. I had a few things throughout the years, and remember them well. At four, I got a huge hypoallergenic bed pillow instead of a toy because I was so allergic to everything. The next year, I got a Tiny Tears doll. Next, a hula hoop and a Wham-o bird. Of course we had pick-up sticks, jacks, Tiddley winks, Scrabble, and Monopoly, but they were family games. Not mine. Oh, and also, from the
Santa at the Navy base, I got Tinker-toys when I was seven. At eight, I got a Pogo stick. It was fun, and I didn’t know anyone else who had one.
I’m just throwing it out there. I get sad every year when I see the toy ads and collection boxes come out, because I know that if a child actually does not have toys, it’s just an outward manifestation of a crushing systemic problem. I intend to give to the subsidized school lunch program because as a child, I would rather have had anything for lunch that wasn’t just a slice of homemade bread.
