Detox Your Toy Box

The ongoing Mattel toy recall is a huge concern for parents. Here are the resources I have found to be most useful:

CNN has a helpful illustrated list of recalled toys.

Parenting.com has written an article about "Taking Recalled Toys Away" that can help you remove recalled toys with the least possible anxiety.

American Academy of Pediatrics has many resources on toy safety and lead poisoning posted in response to the Mattel recall.

Magnets are very dangerous if kids ingest them. This is a risk I had not thought of but it makes sense that magnets in an acidic environment could be very corrosive. And if the magnets stick to each other, they won't pass through the digestive tract easily.

I also wrote about the lead issue on the MomsRising.org blog. MomsRising has been op top of this issue since the story first broke. They have created a petition to the CSPC, Consumer Product Safety Commission, to require more extensive testing for banned toxins in toys, and to ban more toxic ingredients. How crazy is it that toys can't be coated in lead paint, but kids' jewelry can contain lead? Please join me in signing the petition.

Finally, I wanted to recommend an illuminating episode of The Diane Rehm Show, "Lead Poisoning and Crime" that talked about the toy recall and the larger public health hazard of lead poisoning.

Environmental lead poisoning from old lead paint, for example, is still a huge problem. This very real risk disproportionately affects poor and minority children and therefore does not get the attention and resources it deserves. It is hard to treat lead poisoning. It is far more effective to prevent it. Let's hope that this Mattel toy recall brings attention to the overall need for lead removal.

Protection vs. pampering? I'm not yearning for the "olden days"

Last week at our classroom potluck, a group of parents was talking about how much more freedom we had when we were kids, compared to the protected lives our children lead. Remember when we could run loose in the woods? Ride in the "way back" of the station wagon? Do skateboard stunts without helmets or pads?

I struggle with the balance between protection and freedom every day with my almost-8-year old. Around her age I could ride around my whole neighborhood on my bike, with friends or on my own. With my daughter we're not quite to the "run outside and play, be back by dark" stage of life yet. Kids need life experience and yet they also need protection. Achieving this balance is the challenge and paradox of parenting.

But lest we get too nostalgic for the "good old days," I was reminded this week of the sanctioned cruelties that were visited on children as recently as the 20th century. It wasn't so long ago that children and wives were classfied as property. Adults could punish or abuse children in any way they wanted with little fear of reprisal. These dangers are still present in our modern society, but they are much less accepted, at least in the United States.

The June 7th episode of The Diane Rehm show presented one of the most interesting, morally conflicted topics I have ever heard--a story that reminds us how bad the "good old days" really could be. A social worker from Memphis, Tennessee named Georgia Tann did more than anyone before her to popularize adoption in America. She made it "respectable" for families to adopt, breaking through the eugenic myth that no one would want to raise a genetically "inferior" baby born of a poor mother. But, Tann's methods were cruel, amoral, and criminal. From the 1920's to 50's, she stole babies, raised the children in orphanages where they were routinely tortured and sexually abused, and then sold them to families. All this was done under the protection of the corrupt political machine operating in Memphis at the time. Our modern approach to adoption is still influenced by some of the effects of Tan's crimes. The secrecy surrounding adoptees' families of origin, starting with their falsified birth certificates, can be traced at least in part to the fact that Tan had to hide the fact that she had kidnapped babies in order to "fill the demand" for adoptable children, and had to hide them from birth families who were still looking for them.

I haven't read Barbara Bisantz Raymond's book yet, The Baby Thief, but I plan to. I am always fascinated by untold history and the effects on modern society. The older I get, the more I appreciate investigative journalism. Bisantz Raymond is herself an adoptive mother, and she seems to be in an excellent position to grapple with the conflicted realities of the history of American adoption.

A final thread to weave into this story: My daughter loves the Roald Dahl book Matilda. She had read it at school and asked me to read it to her again at bedtime. We are currently 2/3 of the way through. She is drawn to the story of a child's magical empowerment in the face of adult authoritarianism. I cringe at the descriptions of the abhorrent parents and abusive headmistress. Fortunately (from the perspective of a parent looking for relief as she reads it out loud) the worst mistreatment is told through the kids' rumor-mill, which helps distance the tale with the hope that some of it might be a playground exaggeration. But as I heard the descriptions of the mistreatments of Georgia Tann's orphans, who were tied up closets and abused, I realized that perhaps Roald Dahl's tales of Miss Trunchbull's torture closet, "The Chokey," covered with bits of broken glass and sharp spikey nails, were not as unrealistic as I had hoped. I hadn't understood the attraction of this book to begin with and now am really hating it. I can only wonder what Mr. Dahl's experiences at boarding school were really like. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a much more effective transmutation of chilhood angst into literary magic. To me, Matilda is an all-to-literal reminder that the good old days don't deserve the nostalgia we are tempted to bestow.