I had the brilliant idea to pick up the kids from school and get sufganiyot.  You know, get in the holiday spirit.  It’s just not that exciting a holiday unless you really really really love candles.  Like 44 of them.  Do you know what kills a healthy love of candles?  Living for three years in the shadow of the Yankee Candle Factory.  But I digress.

We drove to the bakery and got in the long line.  That was our first mistake.  What we should have done upon seeing the line is turn around and go home.  But we didn’t.  We got in line and waited for a half hour to reach the counter.  THEN we were told it would be a 40 minute wait for the doughnuts.  Wow… 40 minutes for fried dough?  That’s a little steep.  But we had already waited a half hour to learn that so it felt a bit in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound.  So we placed our order and sat down at a table.  The woman working the counter kindly gave us two doughnuts from our order, and we devoured them (but not before I managed to squirt a big blob of raspberry jam on my jeans).

Oh, and did I forget to mention that it had been pyjama day at school, so the twins were sitting in this bakery in their pyjamas?  Classy.

I started reading from Harry Potter to the twins, and after a while, I realized that I had read two chapters.  Two long chapters.  I had been there for over an hour.  So I asked the frazzled woman about my order and she told me it would be soon.  Another 15 minutes passed and I asked another employee about my order.  At this point, the original woman came by to tell me that they couldn’t actually fill the order I already paid for.  Would I be willing to accept a cheaper flavour despite having paid for the premium flavour?  Sure, why don’t you give me a flavour we don’t really want and we’ll be on our way.

She passed me a box and it was… someone else’s order.  So I waited again to return the box with someone else’s order, and finally got mine.  With the jam leaking out of the doughnuts, all over the box.

And now, an hour and a half later, I took my pyjama-clad children back to the car and decided to eat one of the doughnuts on the ride home because I had skipped lunch, not realizing how long the sufganiyot errand would take.  And the doughnuts were raw inside.  Oozy, undercooked dough mixing with the jam.  I sat in traffic and cursed the holiday.

I’ve never been a fan of Chanukkah.  It’s just not my holiday.  It lacks the gravity of Rosh HaShanah or Pesach.  It lacks the fun of Purim or Succot.  It just sort of is; and people try to turn it into something its not.  It’s not the Jewish Christmas.

I’ve been trying to get into the spirit of Chanukkah because of the way it intersects with Thanksgiving this year, mostly because Thanksgiving is a closer holiday to Chanukkah in terms of message.  As I said in that post,

So this is what Chanukkah is about: it’s a somewhat insignificant holiday meant to commemorate the time that King Antiochus instated laws not allowing Jews to practice their religion and the Macabees fought back. It’s a story about guerrilla warfare and a revolution. About not waiting for G-d to intercede on your behalf, but fighting back against injustice. It is about a time when life sucked hardcore for the Jews and instead of putting down their heads and crying, they rolled up their sleeves and restored the Temple.

In other words, it’s a pretty cool holiday on its own, but where gifts and sweetness have a place in a birthday celebration for Christ, presents and candy don’t really commemorate a war. Jews don’t celebrate war victories — recognizing that death is a large part of war — so this holiday is more about relief than outright joy. It would make more sense to use Chanukkah to go into the community and right a few wrongs. Or do a habitat for humanity-like project to fix up a home in need of repair. See, it’s not really a holiday that can be celebrated like Christmas.

…

Chanukkah is a holiday about fighting assimilation, so it’s sort of weird that a holiday about fighting assimilation has become assimilated in order to be more like the majority holiday close on the calendar. Jews should be proud of the holiday — it’s essentially a story of thanksgiving — and pump up the parts that matter: family, friends, and fried foods.

So I’m trying to remember to give thanks since it’s what I said back in 2008 too:

Personally, I look at the holiday as a kind of Thanksgiving. It is that period of peace that comes at the end of a struggle where you’re simply thankful for what you have. Just as Succot is a harvest holiday where thanks is given for the crops, Chanukkah can be a time of thankfulness — marked by community service, family meals, and enjoying what you already have rather than thinking about getting more.

Right… so… Thanksgiving.  Chanukkah.  A good attitude about an under-loved holiday.  Is that wrong?  To under-love a holiday that did nothing wrong except fall too close on the calendar to Christmas?  Poor Chanukkah.  If it had been set in February, you would have never noticed it.

So happy Chanukkah, everyone.  May your sufganiyot be cooked through and may you always get gimel in dreidel. (Yes, I messed this up the first time around.  That is how long it has been since I’ve played dreidel.)

Welcome back to IComLeavWe. It stands for International Comment Leaving Week, but if you say it aloud, doesn’t it sounds like “I come; [but] leave [as a] we”? And that’s sort of the point. Blogging is a conversation and comments should be honoured and encouraged. I like to say that comments are the new hug–a way of saying hello, giving comfort, leaving congratulations. Here is the vital information, pure and simple (a more detailed set of rules follows below the list):

• The list opens the 1st of every month. It remains open until the 21st. You can add yourself at any point. The list is open to everyone in the blogosphere–blog writers and/or blog readers.
• Add yourself to the list by filling out this form after adding the icon below: The December list is now closed.  The January list will open on 12/27.
  
• Click here to cut-and-paste this bit of code to add to your sidebar (if you have the old code from another month, remove it and replace it with this one). You need to add the icon or a link to the current list on your blog (see below) and will not be added until it’s up.
• Commenting kicks off every month on the 21st. Please mark it somewhere (calendar, post-it note taped to your computer…), though I will be sending out an email reminder on the 20th. Commenting week runs from the 21st to the 28th. Every day, leave 5 comments and return 1 comment for a total of 6 comments. You are highly encouraged to choose the blogs you comment on from the participants list below, but this is not required.
• I will send a second email on the 28th to remind you to remove the icon from your blog.
• Read below if you want to find out about Iron Commenters.
• The commenting ends on the 28th. We catch our breath and the whole thing starts again the next month on the 1st. Drop in and out according to what is happening in your life between the 21st and the 28th.

1. Stirrup Queens (twins, books, writing)
2. Baking & Babies (baking, parenting after infertility)
3. Stupid Broken Eggs (IVF, faith, infertility )
4. Breathe Gently (New-mum, IVF, PCOS)
5. Waiting for Baby (pregnancy, PCOS, thyroid)
6. The 2 Week Wait (infertility humor motherhood)
7. Family Of Three (parenting after infertility)
8. Dear Noah (loss, tfmr, grief)
9. Constant in the Darkness (open adoption, parenting, relationships)
10. Genuine Greavu (infertility, faith, IVF)
11. Amateur Nester (infertility, faith, life)
12. Feeling Beachie (life, humor, family)
13. No Bun In This Oven (ttc, infertility, iui)
14. One Step at a Time (baby after infertility)
15. Birds, Bees, and Medicine (infertility, PCOS, family)
16. Comatised (love, life, happiness)
17. Hope, Love and Family (infertility, faith, endometriosis)
18. A Little Bit More (PCOS, TTC, life)
19. Our Journey to a Family of Four (twins after infertility)
20. Life of an Army Wife (army wife, donor eggs, donor embryo)
21. Dreaming of Dimples (IVF, inspiration, infertility)
22. The Road From There To Here (infertility and miscarriage, faith, health issues)
23. In Quest of a Binky Moongee (faith, IVF, TTC)
24. In Due Time (faith, hope, waiting)
25. The Icing on Our Cake (infertility, IVF, life)
26. Penguins of mine (infertility, loss, drawing)
27. Creating a Family (infertility, adoption, parenting)
28. For This Child I Prayed (parenting after infertility, faith)
29. I Can Do This (immune factors, losses)
30. The Noona Musings (infertile, student, life)
31. MissConception (parenting and pregnancy, loss, PCOS)
32. The Buggy List (miscarrage, new motherhood, humor)
33. Baby On Mind (embryo adoption, infertility, 40+)
34. Ready Now To See it Your Way (loss, marriage, kids)
35. Adopt To Change (adoption, infertility, hope )
36. The December list is now closed.  The January list will open on 12/27.

Q: What if I miss a day?

A: Catch up the next day by doubling your comments–12 comments instead of 6.

Q: What if I have two blogs? Can I sign up twice, listing both blogs?

A: Yes, but you also need to double your comments. If you have two blogs listed, you should be leaving 12 comments per day.

Q: What is an Iron Commenter?

A: Not for the faint-of-heart. People who wish to be an Iron Commenter and be entered on the Iron Commenter honour roll need to leave a comment on every blog on the participants list (exceptions are blogs that require you to have a special log-in, such as some LiveJournal accounts or other similar situations). You can spread out this commenting any way you wish over the whole week, but the final comment needs to be left by midnight on the 28th (EST). Reaching Iron Commenter status is done on an honour system. Please email me if you earn Iron Commenter status so I can add you to the wall of honour.

Q: Why do I have to add that bit of code to my sidebar?

A: The code is the latest icon (the icon changes colour every month so you know that you’re on the right list). This month, the icon is red, the next month it will be silver, etc. The reason is two-fold: (1) it enables more people to find out about IComLeavWe and (2) it gives you easy access to the current list once the commenting week actually begins and better ensures that you’ll use it. Too many times, people sign up and forget to actually do IComLeavWe and this icon gives you a daily reminder (with the dates on it) every time you open your own blog. The icon is linked back to the current list. On the 28th, remove the icon from your blog. A new one will be created for the next month.

Q: It’s the 23rd and I just saw this for the first time on my friend’s blog! I want to join the list–why can’t I?

A: Because IComLeavWe happens every month, once the list is closed, it’s closed. If you’re finding out about this on the 23rd, you can’t join the current month. But leave yourself a note to check back in a week on the 1st and you can sign up for the next month.

Q: You said the list closes on the 21st. Well, it’s still the 21st where I am. Why aren’t you moving my information onto the list?

A: All dates and times are U.S. Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT -5 hours). The list closes around 11 p.m. EST on the 21st.

Q: What if no one comments on my blog and I have no comments to return?

A: Well, that really doesn’t happen for the most part, but in that case, simply choose another blog and add an additional comment. The goal is to hit 6 comments daily as a minimum. Going over that is fantastic and encouraged.

Q: Mel, my question wasn’t covered at all. What do I do?

A: Email me; I’m quite friendly. It helps to place “IComLeavWe” in the subject line. You could also check this post which contains the history of IComLeavWe and see if you can glean anything there.

Looking for the comment section? It has been closed on this post. Use the form in the directions to add yourself to the list.

[Melissa clinks on her glass in order to get everyone’s attention and then begins to speak.]

Welcome back everyone.  I am so glad that you’re here at the fifth annual virtual ALI Thanksgiving meal – an online meal that is a yearly tradition before we scatter to our respective actual Thanksgiving tables.  Is it held during American Thanksgiving week instead of Canadian or another country’s thankfulness celebration?  Yes, and I apologize for that, but at least I didn’t hold it on American Thanksgiving so hopefully everyone will feel comfortable participating regardless of where you live.

[Polite laughter from the non-American contingency while they secretly think about how Americans flood the Internet with Thanksgiving posts this week and it’s freakin’ annoying.]

The Thanksgiving myth is that people who had nothing more in common than simple humanness stopped looking at each other’s differences on this day in history and sat down at the table together for a meal.  It’s a meal about survival; about going into the winter knowing the odds are stacked against you and still pausing for a moment to think about the here and now.

And truly, what better myth to describe our own virtual Thanksgiving table, where donor gamete bloggers are sitting next to those living child-free after infertility, and the adoption bloggers are seated next to those starting their first IUI.  We have nothing more in common than our humanness and a desire to build our families.  Some have crossed the river and are standing on the opposite bank with the families they struggled to build.  Others are still wading in the water.  Some are left on the original bank, not able yet to move ahead or deciding to stay out of the water.  And some have walked away from the river and are at the ocean instead.  We are straight or gay, old or young, men or women.  And yet, we place aside our differences – wait, not place aside: we learn from our differences, we utilize our differences – to create community.  We all have the means to support one another.  It is as simple as a word, a kind gesture.

I would like to start off the festivities by making a toast: to thankfulness.

I say this every year, and I’ll say it again: I will always be incredibly grateful to this online community, a community that has grown to more than 3000 people currently, not to mention those who have slipped away from our community over the years.  It is difficult to put into words how it feels to know that there are people around the world connected to you emotionally.  You are tied to their story and they are tied to yours and together, those threads intertwine to make a web strong enough to hold all of us who walk over it.  It’s not a spider web meant to ensnare; it’s more the netting below the trapeze, there to catch you and cushion your landing in case you fall.

I asked all of you to bring a dish to this multi-culti potluck meal – there is no need to stick to traditional Thanksgiving fare when you have such a diverse table spanning the entire globe.  Please share with everyone at the table what you brought and why.

This year, I’m bringing my cranberry-orange sauce, mostly because that is what I’m bringing to my physical Thanksgiving meal.  It’s tart.  It’s sweet.  It’s a little bit like life.  So I’m placing my bowl of cranberry sauce on the table.  Feel free to dive into the main dishes or nosh on the appetizers or skip all the healthy stuff and head straight for dessert.  There are no rules here. 

So what did you bring and what do you want to say to the community?

And please, start eating as everyone is introducing their dish.  We don’t want the food to get cold and there are so many of us at this table.  Thank you so much for coming, and I’m going to carry the warmth of this meal with me for the rest of this week.  In fact, I just might print out this post and the comments below and carry it with me in my pocket to my actual Thanksgiving meal to have all of you there and feel free to do the same if you need the fortification or simply want the company of a few thousand bloggers at your table.

I’ve written a post like this every year, bringing together all the advice from the years before (my own and what appeared in the comment section) and then opening it up to additional ideas (which will be brought next year into the new post as well). Because this time of year can be both impossibly difficult or impossibly wonderful depending on which side of the happiness line you fall, and I say that even as a non-Christian who doesn’t need to do anything more than participate in a volunteer project and eat a bunch of candy canes on Christmas.

Holidays are a lot of pressure — to get them right, to coordinate schedules/needs/wants, to navigate relationships, to travel. For some people those pressures are additionally pressed down by the knowledge of people missing from the table — either those who were once here or those who haven’t been brought into your family yet. And compounding it all is this ongoing message that holidays must be fun! They must be a happy time! Families must draw together and eat a spiral ham in front of a roaring fire with a sparkling tree in the background!

Even if they’re out of work. Even if they don’t have the family they want. Even if they’re in mourning.

For people who are happily moving through the holiday season, especially those finally celebrating after many dry years, I lift my virtual glass of champagne to you and send you off to enjoy it. Don’t apologize for being happy — just soak in this time.

For anyone else still sticking around to read this, remember that everyone experiences something in life that makes a particular year or set of years difficult for them. That for every holiday season that you enjoy and look forward to participating in, there is also a time in life where you dread all the reminders that come with a holiday season and wish you could avoid the whole thing. And this year may be that time for you, but it won’t always be that time for you. Things change; both for good and bad. This too shall pass.

You can sit out of the festivities if that’s what you need to do, but a survival guide is sort of like holding your breath to eat (you know, so you don’t taste anything) when your mother asks you to try lima beans. Like slimey green lima beans, going to events is usually good for you, and it’s important to be around people who care about you when the going is tough. You just may need a trick for getting through family time just as mouth-breathing (and not tasting) works for choking down undesired foods.

I’ll offer up the same advice I gave the last year five years with additional notes from comments that came on those old posts:

• Create your own incentives and treat getting through the holiday season as your job. Pay yourself in whatever will make you happy. For instance, after a trip to the local mall to have your picture taken with your niece and Santa, pay yourself with a manicure. Attending the holiday party from hell may win you an entire bar of chocolate. It’s worth setting up small incentives and budgeting for your own happiness because it can be something to focus on during the task at hand.

• You know the idea that you can take a large school and make it small but you can’t go the other way around? Flip that concept when it comes to the holidays: take a small part of the holiday and make it big. Focus on something that you can do and make it your contribution to the holiday season. If you know celebrating Christmas will be too much, make sure you throw yourself wholeheartedly into helping prepare Thanksgiving (and then develop an unfortunate case of the stomach flu on December 24th). If you can organize the family gift but can’t fathom how you’ll do Christmas dinner, make sure you send out an email to your siblings early asking for photos of your nieces and nephews so you can design a great picture calendar for your parents. And then skip the ham.

• Do all your shopping online instead of subjecting yourself to walking past the displays of toys and Christmas baby clothes at the store. Keep it simple this year – you have a lifetime to plot out the most fantastic gifts of all time. This may be the year that you need to buy a DVD or book for each person your list and be done.

• Leave a note in your pocket: write a note to yourself, ask a friend to jot something down, trade letters with your partner, or simply leave a list of names (therapist, fellow bloggers, the friend you’ll drink with the moment you get home) in your pocket to touch as a reminder that someone has your back when you begin to feel overwhelmed at the holiday table. I can’t be with you at your Christmas dinner (the whole Jew and vegetarian thing aside, I just don’t think your family is going to be cool if you drag along a random blogger), but I can give you a note right now to keep in your pocket. Simply print this out and whenever you get overwhelmed, touch it and remember that there are people out there who get you. And change the line about mini hot dogs if you’re a vegetarian:

Hey Sweetie:

I know it was really hard to come to this party/dinner/get together but now that you’re here, you’re even closer to it being over. Try to enjoy yourself, but if you can’t, nip into the bathroom for a cry or bury yourself at the buffet table and do nothing but eat mini hot dogs for the rest of the night. There is no shame in enduring rather than enjoying and you need to do whatever you need to do to get through this without ruining any relationships. Make sure you take time for yourself today/tonight after you get home. I’m here on the other end of the computer if you need me.

Love,
Mel

• Pick and Choose: there is no rule that says you must attend every event during the holiday season – even if you’ve gone to everything in the past. If it’s going to cause more grief than it’s worth, just attend the event. But if you can get your partner to “surprise” you with a holiday trip, all the better.

• Book: I actually include a lot of ideas like these in Navigating the Land of If to get through life in general; not just holiday. I’m just saying.

• I will tell you the only trick I have up my sleeve: the holiday card. Most holiday cards we receive are either generic package-of-12 types or pictures of kids/families. We send out cards every year that routinely get responses that it was the best card they’ve gotten all year, or sometimes the best card ever. Sometimes one fabulous photo of us in some fabulous locale; sometimes a whole series around the world (which it will have to be again this year). We used to just have a normal photo card, but now we include a newsy update of career progress and travels. The people with kids (or limited funds, or limited outlook) say, “Wow, your life is amazing. I’m stuck here at home.” I’m not trying to make them feel envious of us, but envy is way better than pity. –Baby Smiling in Back Seat

• All of our friends have been sending photo X-mas cards in the past years. In previous years, we’d send an awesome vacation photo. Like- heh!- we still had fun this year! –Mrs. Spock

• One tip I figured out early on: If you can’t shop online & have to go to the mall, find out what hours Santa will be there — & then go when he’s not around. There won’t be as many kids & babies around to deal with then. –The Road Less Travelled

• I manage to work in a reference to Katie in every edition of our Christmas letter … usually in relation to our volunteer work. But I like being able to remind people that she was real & is still a part of our lives. My Christmas card itself usually has either an angel or Classic Pooh theme (which was also the theme of her nursery). I know other people who use angel stamps on their cards as a subtle reminder of their lost baby(s). –The Road Less Travelled

• This year I solved my problem in the cowardly fashion … I offered to work. I work at a domestic violence shelter, which is open 24/7 … So I figure I might as well. I can get paid double time as well, so it’s all sorts of awesome. –An Unwanted Path

• I started listening to holiday music in August this year. I’m using it as my own private technique for connecting with the joy of the season early enough that I won’t suddenly get trampled in the crush of child-centric images, events, and conversations coming my way during the actual season. I want this year to be different! –Lisa

• Instead of focusing on what I can’t handle, I’m heading into the season excited about the possibilities of the new traditions TH and I will make this year. I’m just going to roll with the punches. If I’m really excited about putting up the tree, we’re going to do it and not wait. If I can’t handle being around our nephew, TH can go and I can stay home. I’m not going to force myself into any situation, and I’m just going to accept where I am and be there. –Kim

• I just bought three bottles of my favorite wine yesterday to take to my mom’s… and I don’t plan to share any of it. –Guera!

• I think I’m going to plan something for just me and my husband so we’ve got an event during the holiday season to look forward to. It’s either going to be going out to a really nice restaurant or going on a trip (or possibly both!). —Sushigirl

• I’m a big fan of lights. Lights inside and out of the house. But putting up the tree where cute handmade kid ornaments should be was always too hard. So I just put up lights – it goes back to finding out what you can do to enjoy the season and doing it. —BigPandMe

• Two years ago at Christmas right after my 3rd miscarriage I was in a really bad place and dreading the holidays. My mom suggested that instead of our normal Christmas Eve meal we make homemade Chinese food – egg rolls, stir fry, etc. It turned out great and for whatever reason not having to face the traditional meal made it so much better. Don’t get me wrong – it was still really hard – but I got through it and was happy that I spent time with my family instead of avoiding the whole holiday. –Becky

• And “work” can also mean volunteer work. Nobody is going to get mad at you for selflessly devoting your time and skills at a soup kitchen instead of sitting around the family table (or for rushing from the family table to do said work). Or they might, but they’ll end up looking like the bad guy, not you. —Bea

• Remember it’s just a day. It has no power. You don’t have to enjoy it. Lots of people don’t. —Mali

• Sometimes things suck, and sometimes, you have to feel what you’re going to feel while things suck. It’s okay to mourn and it’s okay to cry and it’s okay to not pull yourself up by the bootstraps based on someone else’s timetable rather than your own. And that sometimes, when you push yourself to do something, you find that you actually derived a great deal of peace from the experience. Such as sitting down at the Thanksgiving table when you’re sort of dreading being around people. –Me (from two years ago)

• By refusing to stay over, so that I know we can go home when we’ve had enough. Oh sorry, we’ve got the cat to feed, we can’t possibly stay longer… —Rebecca

• As someone who had (is having) a happy IF ending that resulted in children, I find myself very aware of the depression of holidays past. So this year, I’m doing two Christmas cards: one for family and other friends who experienced a happy IF ending, and one for those who are still waiting with empty arms. The first will, of course, include a picture of our family and children and all the enjoyment of the past year. The second will be less “kids in your face” and more “Happy Holidays, we love you.” I remember how much it stung to get Christmas cards in the mail of new babies and young families that I wanted so badly for myself. I just can’t do it to my friends how I KNOW are enduring the same heartache. —Amy

• Lots of wine and a sober husband to get me home. When everyone is so busy doting on kids or passing around gifts, its easy to just be in the room, but just off to the corner, on the outskirts, enjoying drink after drink. And I also let hubby tackle the “so when are you guys gonna have kids” questions. —Kimberly

• We’ll have a big breakfast, then go out for a real long walk (10 miles), then we’ll come back and cook a sumptious dinner for the two of us, then in the evening, we’ll head out to the in laws when the children will be in bed and we can just stay an hour or so before being tired and heading home for our beds. –Flowergirl

• My husband and I started a tradition a few years ago that we cherish. We each spend the holiday season in search of the perfect tree ornament for the other. We decorate with the old looking blown glass ornaments and we try to find something that really represents the other person. My hubby’s have been a motorcycle, an old school looking robot, a space taser gun, Santa serving up beers, among a few others. This gave us something to focus on other than what was missing. —Lacie

• My best advice is always to make the holidays as nice as you can for yourself. I love getting the Christmas tree and decorating, so I have been buying ornaments and looking at holiday decorating ideas. It has always been a happy part about Christmas, with or without children, whether or not I’ve been in a relationship, so it is the thing I can hang on to. —Chickenpig

• Spending the holidays where the celebration is so different from what you are used to also really helped- yes there were lots of Christmas decorations around, and small children, but there were no Santa photo stands. —Persnickity

• I would say to just take care of yourself. You know what you need to help yourself so do what makes you feel good and not what others expect you to do. —Cautious Optimist

How do you get through the holiday season when you’re feeling less than your best?

All this talk about GoldieBlox is why I would never want to have to grow up again.  It is so damn hard to be a kid today.  A case in point: when I went to elementary school, we were expected to get from Point A to Point B (for instance, our classroom to the lunch room), with minimal noise and with all body parts still intact.  As long as no arms were lost along the way and no one made arm farts, we were okay.  Actually, there were probably some kids who made arm farts.  But they did so discreetly.  Spend any time in an elementary school today and students are expected to line up quietly and walk silently, a completely unnatural state of being.  Can you imagine adults walking in a single file line, silent as ghosts?  Picture your office mates traveling from their desks to the conference room with one finger against the wall, mouths shut.  We ask kids to suppress every human instinct at a time in life when they have so little control over their body, mind, and mouth.  These are people who were peeing in diapers and babbling nonsense words only a few years ago.

Wait, but we were talking about toys.

Image: Deiby via Flickr

I couldn’t grow up today because there is too much pressure down to choosing the right toy.  My parents (as far as I know) looked at appropriateness and price, and that was pretty much where their toy direction ended.   They wouldn’t let us play, let’s say, with a bag of glass. But beyond Prostitute Barbie or a real crossbow, they let us choose our toys without thinking of them as anything more than toys.  We had a lot of Playmobil, Barbies, Bristle Blocks, Legos, Smurfs, and Strawberry Shortcake.  We had a play kitchen that my father built for us.  We had board games and a ViewMaster.  Most of the time, we used our toys as a storytelling device.

How many of us (and be honest) have purchased (or would purchase) a toy thinking about how it will help shape a child?  I certainly have.  The only place I’ve drawn the line is that I’ve never purchased toys before my child has shown a clear interest in said toy.  But that’s only because I’m cheap, and I would be worried about purchasing something and having it go unused.  But I took a step back when we were discussing GoldieBlox because really, this idea reinforces how much we are meddling in childrens’ lives.  Sometimes in a good way, but sometimes getting in the way of allowing them to be themselves.  You don’t have to be a parent to be guilty of this: I was guilty of it as an aunt, a teacher, and now as a mother.

I think I really need to stop doing this.

I think the fact that we’re not even letting little girls choose their own toys without comment ties into the fact that we’ve also stopped giving kids unscheduled, unstructured play.  Don’t you remember that?  Having plans after school was the exception; not the norm.  Our afternoons were spent playing tag with neighbours. Or drawing at the kitchen table. Or building a fort with the sofa cushions and curling up underneath with a blanket and pretending it was a cave that also contained an invisible unicorn.  That play was really important.

My toys — by which I mean my playtime — didn’t create my future interests; my toys reflected my current interests.

Throughout this discussion of GoldieBlox, I’ve been trying to think about how different I would be if my parents had tried to guide me toward a career field that they had chosen for me, which was clear from their toy choice.  Would I feel ashamed if I chose a different profession knowing it was clearly not what my parents wanted for me?  If they had pushed me to be an engineer by giving me all these engineering toys, and I decided to be a writer instead?  Would I have found a job that was a natural fit; or would work always have been trying to shove my round self into a square hole?  If a child isn’t naturally drawn towards science, is it a good idea to push them towards science?  Or will they forever be walking an uphill path, fighting their natural desires?  We aren’t the first generation who has guided their children towards a certain field — family businesses beget familial workers — but we are the first generation who has done so via toys.  Who has pushed our kids towards fields that we don’t work in ourselves.

I don’t think you can create a science-lover.  You can only show a child YOUR love of science and hope they love it too.  And if you don’t have a love of science, no amount of GoldieBlox is going to generate that love in a child without our input.  Think back to teachers who made you excited to learn, and think back to teachers who clearly weren’t emotionally invested in the subject matter for the lesson.  I think the same goes for parenting; our kids can tell when we’re guiding them towards things we aren’t interested in ourselves, and they latch onto things where we bring our own expertise or excitement.

Look at the kids you know: your children, your students, your nieces or nephews, your neighbours.  What are their interests?  And what are your interests?  Can you nurture theirs?  Can you show them yours?

It has always seemed so simple with my boy.  The Wolvog loves computers.  He passionately loves them to the point where I fear that he will one day marry a robot and give me android grandkids.  What he doesn’t groove on is art, despite having a sister interested in art and a mother with an MFA.  I would love it if he’d take an art class, but the closest he’ll come to art is drawing on the iPad.  And let’s be honest: he’s only doing that so he can be touching something electronic.

I wouldn’t dream of ignoring his interests and foisting art supplies on him every time there is an opportunity to buy him a gift.  I wouldn’t even make it one of his gifts if I was buying him multiple gifts.  I may buy myself art supplies and introduce him to my favourite form of play.  But really, when it comes down to it, gifts should reflect the personality and wants of the receiver.  I shouldn’t get him what I want him to play with; I should get him something I suspect would fill his little electronic heart with joy.

And the same goes for the ChickieNob.  Just because she has a vagina doesn’t mean she should be treated differently from her brother.  So, yes, from this point on, I am not purchasing toys unless she shows an interest in it on her own or if I am going to bring my passion to introducing her to a toy.

I guess this is my toy manifesto.  Free the toys.  Allow the kids to follow their interests.  Don’t withhold toys if they do show an interest: give the boys dolls; give the girls Legos — if that’s what they want.  At the same time, don’t do the opposite: don’t give toys where they haven’t shown an interest.  As the great Bruce Springsteen once said, “You can’t start a fire without a spark.” (I believe the dancing in the dark was just a song about enjoying those glow-in-the-dark planetary stickers.)  We need to be present, to notice that spark, and then fan those flames until we have our kids burning with their passions.

P.S. I’m not saying you’re doing this, purchasing a toy that your child hasn’t indicated that she’ll love.  I think everyone who commented either has a STEMy little girl OR they themselves are passionate about science and want to hopefully transfer that love to their kid.  But I have seen a number of commenters in the mainstream media coverage of GoldieBlox talking about how they want to buy the toy because they want to make sure their kid becomes an engineer.  And the toy’s manufacturer stated herself that the point of the toy is to build those engineering skills early in young girls.  So… yeah… my toy manifesto is for those people.  And I am probably preaching to the choir.