Sacrificing Development for Dollars:
The Corruption of Child Play
Michael Brody M.D.
This presentation deals with play and toys,
which are vital for the development of language and motor
skills. Watch a child absorbed in play alone, or with others,
and you notice immediately that play is all about story
telling, the child’s own story. The stories are often about
over coming a separation or grievance, making the unfamiliar
familiar, or the rehearsal for adult roles. The activity
should be light and happy. It is absorbing and is meant to
help transcend the everydayness of life. Toys, like the
generic baby doll, should act as a catalyst, for the child’s
own narrative. But unfortunately these narratives are
constantly contaminated, and altered by the mega-media and toy
corporations who want to tell their own stories.
A recent trend in toys, as observed by the presenter on a
visit to this years Toy Fair, other than scripted media
character toys, carries the most seductive sales pitch for
Boomer parents–“Its Educational.” Demographics have made
childhood Darwinian, as kids need CVs just to get into Pre
School. One of the top sales people from Melissa and Doug a
quality toy manufacturer based in Westport, Connecticut told
the presenter at Toy Fair that” Childhood is no longer
innocent, play is a dirty word, achievement is where its at.”
Many of the toys highlighted at Toy Fair also serve as
prototypes for the world’s number one toy distributor-
McDonalds- whose Happy Meals sales dwarf even Wal- Marts toy
grosses. Talk about super sizing!
As a psychiatrist/educator, the presenter wonders how all this
impacts on a child’s psyche? As a physician, the Public Health
crisis of childhood obesity and Type II diabetes is also a
major concern, as Ronald McDonald and Captain Crunch pour fats
and sugars directly into our kid’s blood streams. Has the sick
child as viewer/consumer replaced the healthy child of play,
sports and make-believe?
MICHAEL BRODY MD (mikebro@erols.com) is a child psychiatrist
and Chair of the Television and Media Committee of the
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He is a
professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland,
where he teaches a course on Children and Television and has
just completed a documentary film: Fifty Years of
Children's Television from Howdy Doody to SpongeBob.