Old Fogey Alert!

Last night at work, one of the women was describing a game she was going to get her children: "It's called Operation and it buzzes and lights up when you touch the side."

I told her, "That was HIGH TECH stuff when I was a kid. We were all amazed that the nose would light up the same time the buzz went off."

Then another woman chimed in that the game hadn't even been invented when she was a kid. She jokingly said what was high tech in her day were paper dolls.

Which reminded me of (was it?) McCall's Magazine that had the new paper doll outfits in each issue and how much fun it was to cut them out and try them on the doll. I think the doll's name was Betsy?

Which led to an interesting discussion of low-tech toys and toys that spark the imagination as opposed to toys that children passively interact with that do not require much imagining on the child's part.

Which reminded me of an interesting article that I saw about the demise of helicopter parenting..

I often (not so jokingly) wondered where this nation would get its writers and artists from once an entire generation had lost the need and ability to use imagination as a part of play.

Yeah, baby let's get back to cutting out paper dolls, playing with dress up clothes, running around in the backyard pretending it's a distant planet or the wild west and letting our kids get dirty and sweaty and chipped up a little bit.

Loki sez: I'm imagining I just ate a Smurf.