why do we stop playing with toys?....

[Qdrop]

and playing "make believe"?

you think that it's mostly society that makes us put the action figures down?
i mean, i'm sure there is some biology at play that eventually tells us to get more serious with our endevours...

but i remember the distinct and abrubt jump in my family and society's expectations of me around 7th grade (age 11-12).

i loved toys and action figures and make believe games all throughout my child hood.
all up through sixth grade or so....toys and more toys.

then, all of the sudden....7th grade starts i'm about to turn 12. "Toys are officially beneath me now" says my family and society.
i was "suddenly too immature" for them.
i mean, i was getting more into video games then...and i was starting to really notice chicks more.....it wasn't as if action figures were at the top of my agenda anymore anyway
but i remember that some new kick ass Batman action figures came out right after my 12th birthday....and i wanted to get em'. mostly for collecting, rather than playing...but shit, i'd still fuck around with em.
but my mom just shot a look of virtual disgust at me.
"what?...you're too old for toys now....no. you'll have to buy them yourself"
it's like i wanted to buy a baby rattle or something.

dude, like the year before, she bought me like 4 transformers or some shit.

so i got them...and i instantly felt embarrassed by her. i remember her just looking at me when i opened them....
jesus, what the fuck did i do?
i felt like a freek.

i barely touched them. they just sat in my closet. i was scared to even mention i had bought them to my friends.
they instantly became objects of shame to me.

i never bought another toy again...or even touched another action figure in public again (unless i was playing with a younger cousin or sister).

i remember a year later. i was home sick from school. i was 13.
i was looking through some old action figures in the living room....and found myself lining em up....like i was ready to play with them.
suddenly i felt like a fuckin idiot.
holy shit, what if my mom came home and saw that?
i threw em all back in the closet. i felt so low.

so, what the fuck? why does society put such a sudden and final clamp on our play time like that? what does that stem from. why the need for shame, do you think?

and why is it bizzare for a 30 year old to play with action figures, but cool for him to play video games?


(and no, i don't play with action figures. that desire faded on it's own very quickly after the "shame-down")

[TurdBerglar]

this is place is my toy and make believe

[Qdrop]

this is place is my toy and make believe
word to that.

[Bob]

i wasn't aware that it was cool for 30 year olds to play video games...sweet

it's probably partly a society thing, yeah, but i think alot of it is just that we start getting interested in other things, and your responsibilities demand that you spend your time doing other things (working, studying, extracurricular stuff), suddenly you don't really have the time for toys anymore. there's not enough time in the day and something's got to go...i guess.

[Nuzzolese]

I still play make believe, I write it all down. Don't toys get more advanced and dangerous?

[Qdrop]

I still play make believe, I write it all down. Don't toys get more advanced and dangerous?

but what would your friends say if they saw you playing with some My Little Pony's?

what age did it become social unnacceptable for you to play with toys?

[Nuzzolese]

My 27 year old brother loves toys, board games, leggo, loves playing. He still does play but he recognizes it as a public shame you just don't talk about because cool guys in movies are never shown playing like that, they're shown doing the real adventure stuff. It's like, as a kid it's understood that you can't really do any cool stuff so you play and dream but then you grow up and that stuff is irresponsible and selfish and you are either expected to really go shoot guns and be a spy or be realistic and just work and maybe then your toys are working on cars or going camping and it's okay to play that way. I'm rambling worse than ever.

[Nuzzolese]

but would your friends say if they saw you playing with some My Little Pony's?

what age did it become social unnacceptable for you to play with toys?

They'd laugh at me then jump over and say "Oh I used to love these!" and it would have to be a moment of nostalgic admiration for the toys, not actual playing with them, not acting out little scenerios because the scenerios we act out are the drama of our daily lives or something. Toys should have become inadequate for a method of releasing what we wanted out of life and around age 13 we should start to become capable of fulfilling and sophisticatedly expressing dreams and such through deliberate communication with other adults.

[Qdrop]

My 27 year old brother loves toys, board games, leggo, loves playing.

WHAT A FREAK!


(see?! see how that works....)

[Qdrop]

Toys should have become inadequate for a method of releasing what we wanted out of life and around age 13 we should start to become capable of fulfilling and sophisticatedly expressing dreams and such through deliberate communication with other adults.

and all of that is true...
but who makes that decision? you or society?

who made it for you?

and why age 13?

[Lindsey_1535]

I recall up till about grade 8 whenever I would phone my friends or other way around that we would say "hey wanna play". In grade 9 in had to change to "hey wanna do something” it was no longer cool to “play”, next year we were goin to high school so we had to be coolio for schoolio.
Toys I stopped playin with em in grade 7ish, never was a huge fan but whatever. I still make snowmen. I get all dressed in my snow best and build a SNOWMMMMAAAN. Tis fun. :o

[TurdBerglar]

the only toys i really had were model and radio controlled cars and legos. as i got older i just got better RC cars and ditched the legos and models. i actually still have all the "professional" RC cars in my attick. the best one i have is an RC10gt, if anyone knows what that is. it's a gas powered(runs off a mixture of nitro methane and methonal alchohol!) radio controlled model and can easily reach 40mph. definetly not intended for children. and my bike could be considered a toy i guess.

[Qdrop]

the only toys i really had were model and radio controlled cars and legos. as i got older i just got better RC cars and ditched the legos and models. i actually still have all the "professional" RC cars in my attick. the best one i have is an RC10gt, if anyone knows what that is. it's a gas powered(runs off a mixture of nitro methane and methonal alchohol!) radio controlled model and can easily reach 40mph. definetly not intended for children. and my bike could be considered a toy i guess.

no GI joes?..no transformers? no He-Man?

dude, you missed out.

you didn't LIVE as an 8 year old unless you had Megatron hold Duke in his dungeon until He-Man came to rescue him.

[kll]

yeah, i think it's what nuzz said - the toys just get bigger and more dangerous... instead of action figures, you have atv's, cars, boats, computers, entertainment systems, etc.

my boyfriend and i were in the toy section at a store just last night and had a great time playing with various toys that lit up and made a lot of noise...

[TurdBerglar]

no GI joes?..no transformers? no He-Man?

dude, you missed out.

you didn't LIVE as an 8 year old unless you had Megatron hold Duke in his dungeon until He-Man came to rescue him.

no i was an outdoor kid. i had footballs and tonka trucks

[Nuzzolese]

We make the decision to grow up and try to mimic adults who do not play because, society - not that "society" automatically suggests some unnatural oppressive force - encourages adults not to play.

But this is interesting because I was just reading a book about it, about how Adults unintentionally encourage children to quickly grow jaded and "cool" by their overindulging of the kids with cute toys and gifts which inspire a sense of wonder in the children, and a vicarious nostalgic sense of wonder in the parents. So really, when parents want to relive that childlike sense of wonder they can do so by giving toys to their kids and playing with them. But then the kid wants autonomy and wants to seek out adult like things to enjoy and that is where they get the "cool" stuff which is stuff young people want, but is not something the adults can give them, and therefore it's not something the adults can enjoy with the children. So then the cute becomes the cool but it's still playing. SO maybe it's like a transitional phase from playing with toys to indulging in cool things, to growing up and then being expected to stop playing and start realistically acting out whatever you wanted to do, and then playing becomes social and sexual games, and then you want to relive the innocent playing with toys so you indulge in the children and make them spoiled and jaded and on and on.

Why 13? I don't know it just seemed like a good age, the teen years.

[Bob]

and all of that is true...
but who makes that decision? you or society?

who made it for you?

and why age 13?

when i was 13 i got a letter from the state, informing me that it was no longer acceptable for me to play with toys and that if i didn't cease and desist i would face punitive measures

[Nuzzolese]

In all groups of people, in varying levels of civilization and development, the kids play and the grown-ups don't. It's the same with most animals but not all. Because the kids all play imaginary games of doing what we presume they might want to do as adults. So play has a function to test out life before you make mistakes committing to anything. Then once you're an adult I guess it's assumed you had your chance to play now it's the real game and you should really go do things, it's not playing.

But I still think there is a sort of social/sexual playing adults do where we take on roles and act out unneccessary dramas and spend money and dress up and go running around and get in adventures.

[TurdBerglar]

didn't you hate when you were like 15 and you aunts and uncles still got you toys for christmas or your birthday?

[Qdrop]

no i was an outdoor kid. i had footballs and tonka trucks

homo

[TurdBerglar]

i never really understood action figures. i thought they were corny. but i guess those tonka trucks are basically the same thing. i would pretend my backyard was a constuction site and make all these roads and shit.

[Nuzzolese]

My brother and I drew various terrains on pieces of paper and laid them down in a grid, taped together, on the floor like a map, and put our toys on them.

[Qdrop]

... So really, when parents want to relive that childlike sense of wonder they can do so by giving toys to their kids and playing with them.[...] and then you want to relive the innocent playing with toys so you indulge in the children and make them spoiled ..

totally.
i still like playing with my little cousins and shit.

i'm gonna play toys with my kids all the fuckin time. even if they don't want to.
as long as i have the kid with me, it's "cute"...not wierd.

[Qdrop]

i would pretend my backyard was a constuction site and make all these roads and shit.
yeah, we would do that.
and we would create "scenes of natural disaster" where a earthquake or flood woudl come and destroy everything.

that was fuckin rad.

[TurdBerglar]

hell yeah! break the hose out and flood the backyard and piss the parents off!

[Qdrop]

hell yeah! break the hose out and flood the backyard and piss the parents off!

if you didn't piss your parents off, you weren't doin it right.

[TurdBerglar]

i also use to spend hours accross the street in my neighbor's yards becuase they had snakes that lived under their porches. i'd be there all day catching them and putting them in buckets. and my cat would join me. so it would just be me and my cat snake hunting.

[Qdrop]

i also use to spend hours accross the street in my neighbor's yards becuase they had snakes that lived under their porches. i'd be there all day catching them and putting them in buckets. and my cat would join me. so it would just be me and my cat snake hunting.

if only that paid $20/hr...
we'd be a happy bunch of dudes.


i used to do the same thing with crayfish in my grandma's stream....

[TurdBerglar]

i brought home a crayfish from school in seventh grade. i put in my fishtank and it chopped my irredecent shark in half

[beastieangel01]

i wasn't aware that it was cool for 30 year olds to play video games...sweet


hell yes man. I told ya :D

anyway, I don't really play with dolls or action figures anymore, but I still pretend. Especially with my 7 year old brother around, it's fun to do. I don't know why it ever goes away though period. It's odd.

I know that I really get in to video games. Although I didn't make up the characters and everything.

Meh.

[Qdrop]

i brought home a crayfish from school in seventh grade. i put in my fishtank and it chopped my irredecent shark in half

dude, crayfish are fuckin wicked.

[Nuzzolese]

I take it all back. You guys are dorks.

[Dr Deaf]

we don't stop playing with toys, we just start building them instead.

back in the day we built tree forts : nowadays we build garages and additions

back in the day we fix and soup up our bmx bikes : nowadays we build motorcycles or dress up our cars

back in the day we used to play pretend : nowadays we get hammered and pretend we're celebrities

it's how old you feel. i still browse the toy aisle at target. some times i'm tempted to pick up some of them DUB city scaled down replicas. cheaper than owning the real deal. instead of playing with them, you just remove from them from packaging and roll em across your desk. later you prop them proudly on top of your monitor or something.

my toy for today is a bag of miracle grow potting soil and a 16" rustic antiquated pot. i'm going to transplant my dracaeba marginata and love every minute of it. :cool:

[Dr Deaf]

funny you say that, I just transferred some herbs given to me to pots in my kitchen and enjoyed it. Already did some fresh herb cooking as well...hmm

ha. nice. i'm thinking about picking up one of those specialized clay pots with all the seperate sections for some herbs. i don't know what the deal is, since i moved to FL i'm instantly drawn to the garden centers or plant sections in supermarkets. back in canada i used to take care of the property at our house. perhaps this is filling in that gap, on a smaller scale of course.

[HEIRESS]

fag-hibit A (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v88/HEIRESS/kissiess.jpg)

that was less than two months ago
thank you, and goodnight.

[Nuzzolese]

That's not playing, that's cutesy pie posing for the camera. You're making a kissy face, you're not sacrificing your mother's respect for you. Or, maybe you are, I'm not sure. The internet is where I play now, all day. Why is it that my job allows me to access this message board but this message board makes me totally incapable of doing my job? Anyone for a few verses of "This Used to Be My Playground"? Show of hands.

[zorra_chiflada]

joe still likes action figures and toys. he still has the transformers movie and watches it. he has some dinosaur figureines, and looks through toy catalogues at cool things.
you wouldn't think that by talking to him, because he seems like a very mature, no-nonsense person.

[ToucanSpam]

legos

[tracky]

Some of these robotic toys they're coming out with these days are fucking rad! I want to have a kid just so I can have an excuse to buy all this stuff. It better be a boy, tho :p

[Medellia]

no GI joes?..no transformers? no He-Man?

dude, you missed out.

you didn't LIVE as an 8 year old unless you had Megatron hold Duke in his dungeon until He-Man came to rescue him.
Seriously. Even I had a couple of Transformers.

I still play with toys occasionally. Usually it's just when I'm babysitting someone under the age of ten, although there have been times when I was helping a friend write scenes for a script she was working on. We got a bunch of Barbies and had them act out the script in front of her video camera. :o

[steve-onpoint]

I miss the excitement of running around Kiddie City. It was this colossal warehouse full of toys. The shelves were huge (at least compared to me) and stacked with wonder.

That was some fun. I'm not putting my finger on a specific memory, but the general feeling. Fortunately, making music takes me to a similar place.

Perhaps imagination has a lot to do with it.

[Mcmac]

qdrop is making me have a craving to pull out the bag of gi joes hidden deep within my wardrobe

[mp-seventythree]

I think this is the reason why some people have kids. My friend went out and bought a huge Scalextric track and cars the day his son was born, it was just an excuse for him to buy toys again.

And when I see my brother with his kids, he's at their level, and he's loving every minute of it. Parenthood is a very good excuse for guys to regress.

[steve-onpoint]

Parenthood is a very good excuse for guys to regress.

So is music.

[Chicka B]

When I was little, I thought playing with toys was boring unless it did something. I don't remember playing with toys, but I remember drawing alot and my mom got me barbies and I'd just cut there hair off and draw on their face. I remember my mom got me a my size barbie and I just stripped her naked and took the dress. :p It's wierd because just last year I was watching retarded shit like spongebob or something and now I think it's stupid and I watch comedy central, mtv and vh1. But I made the decision to stop nobody made me feel obligated to stop playing pretend and stuff. I don't know is fantasizing playing pretend I think it is. It's an interesting thought though, it reminds me and brings up the question why do teenagers, like myself, think it's cool to be mature and wanna grow up? I don't wanna grow up hmm...

[Sandinista!]

Only when you're 10 does the idea that Ian Malcolm can take down a platoon of Costa Rican guerrilas seem plausible.

[Pres Zount]

It's hard to decide between a metal optimus prime or a cordless impact driver these days.

[CrankItUp!]

My ding-a-ling was my favorite childhood toy ! :D And I haven't ever slowed down playing with it and consider it my trophy piece as all the girls agree with me.

[Hiebz]

what about building forts in your house with sheets and pillows and stuff? My wife and I did that the other week, that was pretty fun. On the farm growing up as a kid, we built forts out of the hay bale stacks - those were some good times out in the open and letting your imagination go wild. I'm disappointed nowadays sometimes when I realize the difference in my capablility to enjoy and imagine like I did back then. Still do and try, but I guess it's more serious imagination these days and you got all sorts of other learning stuff going on, you don't make as much time for it.

[CrankItUp!]

Yeah , growing up fucking sux ! (n)

[100% ILL]

"Toys" are realative

[CrankItUp!]

"Toys" are realative
(y)

[adam_f]

I'm just glad I have a little brother because he does remind me that I'm pretty much a 9 year old in a 19 year old body. I'm really going to miss that though when he starts growing up. Not too far away either.

[CJM]

meh, i still buy toys. i just bid on a scraface toy on e-bay, and should be winning any time now. i also have a bunch of star wars toys (bought the Millenium Falcon the other month), and the Run-DMC set. i always keep a look-out for sick toys. i don't really playwith them now, cause i have bigger toys (a skateboard, laptop....and girls). i don't go out and buy toys all the time though....sadly. i'm always gonna be a kid at heart.

[Kid Presentable]

In high school, when a porno mag did the rounds, did anybody ever talk to it while it sat in their school bag? :confused:

[Kid Presentable]

It's hard to decide between a metal optimus prime or a cordless impact driver these days.

Metal Prime, Zount, jesus!

[Documad]

I think that when you get a little bit older than most of you are, you'll either have kids and buy them toys or you'll start buying yourself toys again. It's pretty common with my friends.

The latest is my friend who bought her husband the huge star wars lego thing for his 36th birthday. I've also got a brother who built a giant slot car track in his basement, with super curves and hills and shit and he races his 53 year old best friend who brings his case of cars over, just like when they were 13 and my mom had to drive them to a track.

[mp-seventythree]

I miss the excitement of running around Kiddie City.


I heard Michael Jackson still likes to do that...

[instigator7022]

i remember when i went to 6th grade one day i just said " im too old to play with barbies" and stopped playing with them just like that.

[zippo]

Parenthood is a very good excuse for guys to regress.

So is music.





interesting. shouldve been mentioned in the Music=Youthfulness thread