10 Dec 2008
The good news is that this year, the number of toys found to contain lead -- a chemical which, in high enough concentrations, can cause severe and irreversible developmental and health problems -- is down this year, from 35% to 20%.
The bad news is that, overall, 1 in 3 toys were found to have elevated or potentially unsafe levels of chemicals.
So reports the non-profit organization The Ecology Group, whose healthytoys.org project analyzed some 1,500 toys for chemicals such as lead, arsenic, and bromine. Not exactly the kind of stuff you want to see your kids handling, much less (in the case of younger children) placing in their mouths.
Unfortunately, this has become all too familiar. I'm one of the countless parents who had to frantically round up and return toys in our home that were recalled because of possible lead contamination in their paint.
Side note: In our case, it was several pieces of “Thomas and Friends" wooden railway toys. Don't get me wrong; while I'm no fan of licensed characters on toys -- and this is the one exception we'd made -- I do love solid, old-fashioned, open-ended playthings such as these, and have watched my kids, from a young age, happily build complex and creative layouts with them. And, to be fair, the RC2 Corporation handled the recall quickly and professionally enough. But none of that erases the thought of the tooth marks I'd seen on some of the possibly contaminated items we had to return.
For what it's worth, the Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that this year's lead-based toy recalls are down to 45 (so far) from 97 last year. That's a great start… but it's still 45 too many.
I don't know whether the good ol' toys I grew up with -- from Fisher Price people to Playmobil, from Lincoln Logs to Legos -- contained, or even were tested for, lead. And I suppose I'd rather not know. I made it through childhood unscathed.
And I'm all for playthings that stimulate young minds, even as they're having fun. Watching my kids hone their perception of spatial relationships as they solve jigsaw puzzles or work with Lego building blocks. Watching them do multiplication and addition as they tally up a roll of the dice in Yahtzee. Watching them make change and tabulate rents in Monopoly. (Toys and games which, to my knowledge, remain hazard-free. If you know otherwise … please don't spoil it for me!)
But I can honestly report a few good things about the most popular playthings at our household over the last few months, playthings that kept both a 7-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl occupied for hours in peaceful play:
- They are absolutely free
- They are completely natural
- They are “made" in the USA
And they are…
Leaves. For several successive weekends this fall, I watched two industrious little people follow the time-honored tradition: Rake. Jump. Repeat. And, all the better, I got my backyard mostly cleared of leaves in the process.
Dirt. A small, out-of-the-way section of our backyard has become a designated digging zone. And what bounty my kids have found! Cool stones. Quartz crystals. Ancient pottery. Old coins. And, we swear, a dinosaur bone.
Sticks. From the same manufacturer as the Leaves, I think. Sure, you have to collect them yourself (which, I think, keeps the cost down) but the incredible stick forts you can make with them are well worth the effort.
This holiday season, I wish you and your family safe, natural fun!
 Todd Christopher is the National Wildlife Federation's Director of Online Family Media. |
