Toys Aren't Us

Just prior to our foray into parenthood 3.5 years ago, my husband and I volunteered for a year in a medical clinic serving indigenous people in rural Bolivia (for the geographically-challenged, Bolivia is smack dab in the middle of South America). We had a fascinating and colorful experience there. Of course, it changed the way I see many things. For instance, though I am a "cold body", I now know I am NOT a fan of tropical weather without modern conveniences (air-conditioning). I fell deeper in love with and despair of my country. I discovered I could not, despite years of running for fitness, even jog at 13,000 feet above sea level. And the experience informed a lot of my approach as a mother: I felt genuinely inspired to BE a mother (we came back pregnant) and I often use the images of that year to make from mundane to complex decisions about parenting.

One such image took place while I was on a home visit with the clinic staff to one of the many impoverished families that we served. As always, the family was large and most of the living took place outside, and thus, everyone was dirty. The children were (as anyone might imagine) particularly dirty. One of the little boys in the family was around two or three years old, with a really ragged sleeveless shirt on and nothing else. Time is never closely tracked in Latin America, so while our visit went on over the next hour, I watched as this boy happily and QUIETLY played with his one toy: a rusted gear that had come off an old bicycle some apparent years prior. He rolled it the dirt, making tracks, he turned it around and around. There was absolutely no evidence of boredom in his demeanor.

Despite the anti-materialistic lesson this boy provided to me, my family and I live an overly abundant life here in the US. Our kids have more toys than they play with. They inherited or were gifted the vast majority of them, but I keep them all, somehow feeling it awful to get rid of their toys. Additionally, my children FREQUENTLY demonstrate boredom. They have closets full of different toys, but none seem interesting.

Last week, though, I remembered this Bolivian boy. We are trying to remodel our basement and have moved a pile of junk from the basement to our back yard, awaiting the dumpster (yes, even in our GARBAGE we are abundant). The kids found the pile and had the longest time of contented play together ever documented in our family history (one hour, 20 minutes). As I prepared dinner, I marveled at my own solitude and then at the fact that it was not the swing or the tricycle or the sandbox or the wading pool or the bike or the wagon that was fascinating them. It was junk. I think I'll start donating...