I was so excited when Ashleigh was given this toy for her first Christmas.
I had one of these when I was younger. I loved it. I loved pretending that I was on the phone. Just like mum.
I thought Ashleigh would love it. I thought Mitchell would love it.
But they didn’t. They don’t.
When I pick up the receiver and hold it to my ear, they look at me with confusion. Just like they do when I speak into the mouthpiece, or when I turn the dial.
They don’t understand that it’s a phone. If they want to pretend that something is a phone, they’ll pick up a card. Or a remote. Or an old phone (because we all have old phones in the toy box these days, right?).
This toy means nothing to them.
Earlier this year, Ashleigh and I watched Mary Poppins for her first time. She was enthralled. (As was I – I’d forgotten much of it, like the Sister Suffragettes and the cannons sending the Banks family’s furniture careening around the house.)
She gasped when Mary, Bert, Jane and Michael jumped into the chalk drawing. She laughed when the horses leapt from the carousel. Her eyes goggled when they all laughed-flew around Uncle Albert’s house, and she said “Wow!” when the chimney smoke formed a staircase for the stars to climb in the sky.
But nothing amazed her more than my answer to her question about the big black box on the wall of the Banks family’s home. “What’s that, mum? That big thing with the numbers that the man is talking into?”
“That’s a telephone, Ashleigh.”
Mind. Blown.
What toy – or general item – from your childhood is now completely lost on your children?
That is funny, I remember that toy with my kids. Never realized kids today would have no idea.
Years ago a neighborhood 4 yo was visiting as I got ice out of the old freezer ice tray. Her family had an automatic ice maker distributed through the front door. She asked, “Is that how they used to make ice?”
Haha, we’re going to have that problem too! So funny.
Lol. That really is mind blowing isn’t it?! We also have that phone and I have to say it isn’t a hit here either. They much prefer the mobile phone type ones. My youngest one walks around the house with it to her ear saying ‘Aye-lo, aye-lo’ 🙂
How quickly technology changes. I wonder what my grandchildren’s phones will look like. Maybe just a microchip implanted in the brain at birth!
Ha ha, we have that exact same toy. Same response! Makes me feel old:)
Yes, the fact that I’m older than iPods (by a long way) makes me very old in my niece’s eyes!
My daughter loved hers, about 5 years ago but they only know about them because of TV shows… I always thought those phones were silly as the pull cord too small, I know choke hazard but still – I added extra string so they could pull it around x
That cord is ridiculous – and the pull string is long enough to choke on anyway, so I don’t know why the ring cord can’t be longer!
I have one of those toy telephones too! But we also gave the little one of our old mobile phones to play with and guess which one gets used as a phone?
Not hard to guess!
We have that too and Punky knew what it was right off the bat. But she is the kind of kid that uses anything and everything as a telephone so it might not have been that she knew what it was, it was just instinct to use it as a phone! Lol!
And I find it stupid how they have this long pull cord, but then the string connecting the receiver to the phone is stupidly short. Does not make sense to me!
Haha, I love the idea of her using anything as a phone! And I agree wholeheartedly.