If you have kids or grandkids, or know anyone who has kids or grandkids, or have ever walked by a daycare center and seen what's in the playground, you will be familiar with Little Tikes toys. They're cute. They're fun. And they're brightly colored. Brightly primary colored.
Kids, as anyone who's ever had a kid or a grandkid, or known anyone who had a kid or a grandkid, are drawn to toys with bright colors.
Even back in olden days, when playing Mr. Potato Head actually required your mother's giving you a potato, kids wanted the Radio Flyer red wagon. We wanted the shiny blue bike. The bright yellow hula hoop. We loved playing Cootie. All those bright shiny colors.
In my house, we had a few giant sets of wooden building/alphabet blocks, all of which came in large mesh sacks. The OG set was made up of very nice alphabet blocks, primarily plain wood with muted red, blue, yellow, and green lettering in trim. They were great, and we had a lot of fun playing with them. And we also had a sack of non-alphabet blocks - plain wood that may have been painted a muted blue, red, and green but had faded to nothingness.
Then one Christmas, one of my brothers got a new sack o'blocks: bright purple, red, and yellow. We'd have all the blocks laid out on the braided run in the family room, and we'd all go for the newbies. It helped that the set included cylinders. But mostly it was the vibrant colors that set them apart.
Little Tikes toys didn't exist when I was a kid, but nowadays they're ubiquitous. And it isn't just Little Tikes. PlaySkool. Play-doh. Fisher Price. Legos. They all use bright colors, with some pastel pink thrown in for the girlies.
But now Little Tikes has just introduced a new concept.
The Little Tikes Cloud Collection, which launches Sept. 15, is aimed at allowing parents "to create inviting play spaces that fit within the colors and design of every home without sacrificing the fun kids love," the company said in a news release.
"The collection was designed with both children and parents in mind, and responds to the growing popularity of neutral, design-conscious children's products," Little Tikes said. (Source: USA Today)
Because nothing says fun like white, grey, and beige toys.
The new collection is presumably in response to the "beige moms" trend, "beige moms" being "a term for parents who curate their children's toys and clothes with exclusively neutral colors."
Dressing and toying your kids with "exclusively neutral colors?" Yikes, just yikes!
Reaction on social media was mostly from those who aren't in favor of this curated childhood thang:
"Mom here! this is awful & depressing, kids need color!" one person wrote on TikTok, while another commented, "Nothing says childhood like 47 shades of oatmeal."True confession: I may or may not have gotten one of my nieces an environmentally-friendly upscale wooden dollhouse that was just plain wood. It came from a fancy toy store that specialized in toys for folks who hate plastic and watch PBS. I truly can't remember whether I bought it or just considered it.
..."Why are we taking color out of kid’s lives??" one [Instagram] user commented.
"Sad beige baby toys. Babies need color in their lives! Sad beige parents sucking out all the fun," said another.
But I didn't stick with plain wood toys. I went all in on VW Beetles for Barbies. Groovy Girls' everything, in the fab wild colors they used - orange, chartreuse, bubble gum pink, and royal purple; lots of purple - for the doll clothing and accessories. (Just saw that the Groovy Girls had been discontinued in 2018, but are now back. Yay!)
In response to the pushback, Little Tikes has emphasized that they're not replacing their classics, but are just giving those "beige moms" something to curate:
"The Cloud Collection is simply a new option for families who love a softer palette," it said.Wonder if these curators allow their kids to have colored markers. If they're not verboten, I can see the kiddos going after those bland, depressing toys with a vengeance.
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