Toys For Kids Quotes

You should've just gotten a kids' meal.' Adrian told me, pointing to my half-eaten burger and fries. 'You could've saved me a lot of money. And gotten a toy.

We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa Clause myth and got nothing but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. 'Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten,' Dad said, ' you'll still have your stars.

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my toys will break. So none of the other kids can use 'em.... Amen.

I never believed in Santa Claus. None of us kids did. Mom and Dad refused to let us. They couldn't afford expensive presents and they didn't want us to think we weren't as good as other kids who, on Christmas morning, found all sorts of fancy toys under the tree that were supposedly left by Santa Claus. Dad had lost his job at the gypsum, and when Christmas came that year, we had no money at all. On Christmas Eve, Dad took each one of us kids out into the desert night one by one. "Pick out your favorite star", Dad said. "I like that one!" I said. Dad grinned, "that's Venus", he said. He explained to me that planets glowed because reflected light was constant and stars twinkled because their light pulsed. "I like it anyway" I said. "What the hell," Dad said. "It's Christmas. You can have a planet if you want." And he gave me Venus. Venus didn't have any moons or satellites or even a magnetic field, but it did have an atmosphere sort of similar to Earth's, except it was super hot-about 500 degrees or more. "So," Dad said, "when the sun starts to burn out and Earth turns cold, everyone might want to move to Venus to get warm. And they'll have to get permission from your descendants first. We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. "Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten," Dad said, "you'll still have your stars.

know this one great truth: you are in control of your own life. You get one and only one chance to live, and life is passing you by. Stop beating yourself up, and dang it, stop letting others do it too. Stop accepting less than you deserve. Stop buying things you can’t afford to impress people you don’t even really like. Stop eating your feelings instead of working through them. Stop buying your kids’ love with food, or toys, or friendship because it’s easier than parenting. Stop abusing your body and your mind. Stop! Just get off the never-ending track.

I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools (in America) that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn't there. If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don't ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school.

Every kid's afraid of that right? That someday you'll be left in a corner, like a toy, staring with button eyes and a broken heart.

Keep thinking back about what Mum said about being real and the Velveteen Rabbit book (though frankly have had enough trouble with rabbits in this particular house). My favorite book, she claims of which I have no memory was about how little kids get one toy that they love more than all the others, and even when its fur has been rubbed off, and it's gone saggy with bits missing, the little child still thinks it's the most beautiful toy in the world, and can't bear to be parted from it. That's how it works, when people really love each other, Mum whispered on the way out in the Debenhams lift, as if she was confessing some hideous and embarrassing secret. But, the thing is, darling, it doesn't happen to ones who have sharp edges, or break if they get dropped, or ones made of silly synthetic stuff that doesn't last. You have to be brave and let the other person know who you are and what you feel.

I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t know any kids besides my cousins. I wasn’t a lonely kid—I was good at being alone. I’d read books, play with the toy that I had, make up imaginary worlds. I lived inside my head. I still live inside my head. To this day you can leave me alone for hours and I’m perfectly happy entertaining myself. I have to remember to be with people.

We can know what love is. It´s adults who have forgotten, so they cling to their poor substitute and yell at kids who dare to live with real love. Pure Love. Love without compromise or distraction.

Grandchildren are their grandparents' toys.

The streets are a poor kid’s PlayStation™

Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

I wasn’t a lonely kid—I was good at being alone. I’d read books, play with the toy that I had, make up imaginary worlds. I lived inside my head. I still live inside my head. To this day you can leave me alone for hours and I’m perfectly happy entertaining myself. I have to remember to be with people.

The pathetic thing I wanted to say to him on the phone – but didn’t – was this: When you're a little kid, you have something. Maybe it's a blanket or a stuffed animal or whatever. For me, it was this stuffed prairie dog that I got one Christmas when I was like three. I don't even know where they found a stuffed prairie dog, but whatever, it sat up on its hind legs and I called him Marvin, and I dragged Marvin around by his prairie dog ears until I was about ten. And then at some point, it was nothing personal against Marvin, but he started spending more time in the closet with my other toys, and then more time, until finally Marvin became a full-time resident of the closet. But for many years afterward, sometimes I would get Marvin out of the closet and just hang out with him for a while – not for me, but for Marvin. I realized it was crazy, but I still did it. And the thing I wanted to say to Tiny is that sometimes, I feel like his Marvin.

When we grow up," she said, "we'll have amazing families. Our dens will be better than this. Your kids and my kids will play together in a humongous room with every kind of toy and game." "Except I won't have kids," Dan said. "I'll come over myself and play...

I always kinda liked our attic ghost. When I was a kid, I used to go up there and read stories to it. Show it my new toys. It's just an old spirit stuck between the worlds, right? What's to be scared of?"" ~Vic

I want a big, chaotic family to fill the house. I want to step on toys in the middle of the night. I want to break apart fight and bandage up skinned knees. I want the mess. I want the passion. I want to watch you grow our kids.

Usually at least once in a person's childhood we lose an object that at the time is invaluable and irreplaceable to us, although it is worthless to others. Many people remember that lost article for the rest of their lives. Whether it was a lucky pocketknife, a transparent plastic bracelet given to you by your father, a toy you had longed for and never expected to receive, but there it was under the tree on Christmas... it makes no difference what it was. If we describe it to others and explain why it was so important, even those who love us smile indulgently because to them it sounds like a trivial thing to lose. Kid stuff. But it is not. Those who forget about this object have lost a valuable, perhaps even crucial memory. Becuase something central to our younger self resided in that thing. When we lost it, for whatever reason, a part of us shifted permanently.

Other girls play with soft toys,” I said, “and you play with knives…

A BROKEN HEART killed my dad. That's why my mother always said. And as a kid I always figured his heart was forreal broken like an arm or a toy or the middle drawer.

Sir, people never wanted me to make it to squire. They won't like it any better if I become a knight. I doubt I'll ever get to command a force larger than, well, just me.' Raoul shook his head. 'You're wrong.' As she started to protest, he raised a hand. 'Hear me out. I have some idea of what you've had to bear to get this far, and it won't get easier. But there are larger issues than your fitness for knighthood, issues that involve lives and livelihoods. Attend,' he said, so much like Yayin, one of her Mithran teachers, that Kel had to smile. 'At our level, there are four kids of warrior,' he told Kel. He raised a fist and held up one large finger. 'Heroes, like Alanna the Lioness. Warriors who find dark places and fight in them alone. This is wonderful, but we live in the real world. There aren't many places without any hope or light.' He raised a second finger. 'We have knights- plain, everyday knights, like your brothers. They patrol their borders and protect their tenants, or they go into troubled areas at the king's command and sort them out. They fight in battles, usually against other knights. A hero will work like an everyday knight for a time- it's expected. And most knights must be clever enough to manage alone.' Kel nodded. 'We have soldiers,' Raoul continued, raising a third finger. 'Those warriors, including knights, who can manage so long as they're told what to do. These are more common, thank Mithros, and you'll find them in charge of companies in the army, under the eye of a general. Without people who can take orders, we'd be in real trouble. 'Commanders.' He raised his little finger. 'Good ones, people with a knack for it, like, say, the queen, or Buri, or young Dom, they're as rare as heroes. Commanders have an eye not just for what they do, but for what those around them do. Commanders size up people's strengths and weaknesses. They know where someone will shine and where they will collapse. Other warriors will obey a true commander because they can tell that the commander knows what he- or she- is doing.' Raoul picked up a quill and toyed with it. 'You've shown flashes of being a commander. I've seen it. So has Qasim, your friend Neal, even Wyldon, though it would be like pulling teeth to get him to admit it. My job is to see if you will do more than flash, with the right training. The realm needs commanders. Tortall is big. We have too many still-untamed pockets, too curse many hideyholes for rogues, and plenty of hungry enemies to nibble at our borders and our seafaring trade. If you have what it takes, the Crown will use you. We're too desperate for good commanders to let one slip away, even a female one. Now, finish that'- he pointed to the slate- 'and you can stop for tonight.

What does somebody like you want? More power? More toys? More sex?" "All of the above. All the time." "Greedy bugger." "Kid, let me tell you something. Most people spend their short time in this world less than half alive. They wander through their days in a haze of responsibility and resentment. Something happens to them not long after they're born. They get conflicted about what they want and start worshipping the wrong gods. Should. Mercy. Equality. Altruism. There's nothing you should do. Do what you want. Mercy isn't Nature's way. She's an equal opportunity killer. We aren't born the same. Some are stronger, smarter, faster. Never apologize for it. Altruism is an impossible concept. There's no action you can make that doesn't spring from how you want to feel about yourself. Not greedy, Dani. Alive. And happy about it every single fucking day.

Children have deep devotion to life and this devotion is beautifully expressed through the free play. Objects of play should be as simple as possible, to allow the power of imagination to flourish. Buying ‘perfect’, expensive toys, rob the children of an ability to see beauty in a stone or a shell.

Many years ago I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace. But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

Every try to take a toy away from a toddler? They don't like that, do they? They start kicking and screaming. Best way to take a toy away from a toddler is distract the kid, give him something else to play with. Instead of trying to forcefully take thoughts out of your mind, give your mind something better to play with.

We can know what love is. It’s adults who have forgotten, so they cling to their poor substitute and yell at kids who dare to live with real love. Pure love. Love without compromise or distraction. Hell, when you’re a kid you’ve got all the energy and all the free time in the world. You’ll never have the chance to devote more to love ever again in your life.

I remember still how full of bad magic all those spearpoints to be put on the ends of rifles seemed to be. One was like a sharpened curtain rod. Another was triangular in cross-section, so that the wound it made wouldn't close up again and keep the blood and guts from falling out. Another one had sawteeth - so it could work its way through bone, I guess. I can remember thinking that war was so horrible that, at last, thank goodness, nobody could ever be fooled by romantic pictures and fiction and history into marching to war again. Nowadays, of course, you can buy a machine gun with a plastic bayonet for your little kid at the nearest toy boutique.

Homecoming's stupid." And it is. Buch of kids looking for excuses to grope eachother all night.

Let me tell you what I think about your fucking rules," he said, his voice dripping with venom as he pushed past Liam. "You sit up in your room and you pretend like you want what's best for everyone, but you don't do any of the work yourself. I can't tell if you're just a spoiled little shit, or if you're too worried about getting your pretty princess hands dirty, but it sucks. You are fucking awful, and you sure as hell don't have me fooled... You talk about us all being equals, like we're one big rainbow of peace and all that bullshit, but you never once believed that yourself, did you? You won't let anyone contact their parents, and you don't care about the kids that are still trapped in camps your father set up. You wouldn't even listen when the Watch kids brought it up. So what I want to know is, why can't we leave?... What's the point of this place, other than for you to get off on how great you are and toy with people and their feelings?

As a kid, his favorite toy had been a snow globe, that held a small town of gingerbread buildings and peppermint streets. He’d wanted so badly to live there that one day he’d smashed the glass ball - only to find out that the houses were made of plaster, the candy stripes painted on.

As a subconscious attempt to add meaning or purpose to their life: The unemployed pray for a job; the retired pray for grandchildren.

If a high-reactive toddler breaks another child's toy by mistake, studies show, she often experiences a more intense mix of guilt and sorrow than a lower-reactive child would. ...but high-reactive kids seem to see and feel things more.

Fifth grade is probably pretty rocky for lots of kids. Homework. Never being quite sure if you’re cool enough. Clothes. Parents. Wanting to play with toys and wanting to be grown up all at the same time. Underarm odor. I guess I have all that, plus about a million different layers of other stuff to deal with. Making people understand what I want. Worrying about what I look like. Fitting in. Will a boy ever like me? Maybe I’m not so different from everyone else after all.

You can't jump in the box, you lunatic. "I'm so playing with the box." [...] "Kids never want the toy, only the box

I'm sure the other kids wouldn't mind not being lectured by another toddler over the virtues of sharing and the mental benefits of toy blocks.

Robin was a great kid. Smarter than her father at eight years old. She liked the oddest things. Like the instructions for a toy more than the toy itself. The credits of a movie instead of the movie. The way something was written. An expression on my face. Once she told me I looked like the sun to her, because of my hair. I asked her if I shined like the sun, and she told me, ‘No, Daddy, you shine more like the moon, when it’s dark outside.

We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa Claus myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. "Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten", Dad said, "you'll still have your stars.

Ain't nothing going to eat you while Bubba's around." Caleb laughed. "They might toy with him for a bit but he won't let any past." Caleb to Nick. "Is something wrong?" Nick to Bubba "Nah... I just..." Bubba nervous. "Please, God, Bubba, tell me you're not about to ask me out, are you?" Nick to Bubba. Bubba made a rude sound at him. "Hell, nah. I'd date Mark first, provided he took a bath so I wouldn't have to fumigate my truck or store." "But," Bubba continued, "now that you mention it... that is what I wanted to ask you about." "Dating Mark? Really?" Nick to Bubba. 'Cause the kid with a brand-new license was such an expert on going out with others.

What really got to me was not the fact that animal cruelty could predict violent behavior—it's that up until I read about it, I never thought that it was wrong. I was killing animals and taking them apart, and I had all the emotional reaction of a kid playing with Legos. It's like they weren't real to me —they were just toys to play with. Things.

A lot of people feed their kids' tantrums with snacks and toys. Don't negotiate with terrorists.

Now there's a black market for toys at our school. Christopher Stangel brought in a bunch of Legos from home yesterday, and I hear a single brick will set you back fifty cents.

How am I going to explain to my kids one day that I can't buy them a happy meal because the toy will make them fat?

I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a a note on it saying, toys not included.

As a kid he wished for money or fame or toys or friends. More recent wishes were for so many other things, all of them synonymous with love or escape.

Nick ran smack into me. "Ooof!" he hollered, grabbing me around the waist to keep me from falling down the rest of the staircase. That's when I realized Mom thought Nick and I were going on a date together. Quickly Nick let me go.He looked huge, frowning down at me from the step above. "Why are you stopping in the middle of the stairs?" "Why are you tailgating me?" He put his hand behind me, at butt level, without touching me. "What is that?" he demanded. I bent a little and slapped my butt, "Something the heir to a meat fortune should know all about. USDA grade-A prime,baby." I straightened. "Just kidding. Really, it's my butt." He put his hands on his hips, and from below I noticed his strong superhero chin again.He grumbled, "Why do you have 'boy toy' written across your butt?" "Oh!" I put my hand over the words, realizing that I probably should have been embarrassed about this sooner. "These are my brother's jeans. He wrote it to annoy me. Or to get me a date.

The problem with being the eldest of four kids is, I had to get used to sharing everything real fast. Toys. Candy. Pets. Parents. I was an only child for almost twelve months, then Lachie came along. Right after was Sage and Raene. I’ve always been taught to share my stuff. Being the oldest I have to lead by example, show my siblings that we aren’t self-centred savages. But not this. I won’t share Bexley—even if Tommy Bianchi has a prior claim. Mine. Mine.

I didn’t like how easy it was for someone like Gabby, in her position of privilege, to punch down. At all. It was such an unfair power dynamic. She was like a kid wielding her one-star reviews like a toy, for fun. Only it wasn’t a game. It was someone’s livelihood. And here was Daniel, doing what he felt was the right thing, refunding the whole weekend. He was in the worst position to be generous, yet he was. And she was in the best position to show grace, and she didn’t. And doing it would have cost her nothing. And that was the fundamental difference between them.

It is said that children do not distinguish between living and inanimate objects; I believe they do. A child imparts a doll or tin soldier with magical life-breath. The artist animates his work as the child his toys.

A gun is psychologically a penis-substitute and a symbol of power: the age-range of toy-shop clientele begins at about six or seven, rises sharply just before puberty and declines soon after the discovery of the phallus and its promise of power. From then on, guns are for kids and for the effete freaks and misfits who must seek psycho-orgasmic relief by shooting pheasants.

We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. "Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten," Dad said, "you'll still have your stars.

Like you?” My face twisted in abhorrence, spitting the words like they were revolting. Her eyes widened. I shook my head, a dark chuckle on my lips. “You think I fucking like you? Are you kidding me here? I don’t like you. I love you. Even that’s an under-fucking-statement. I live for you. I breathe for you. I will die for you. It. Has. Always. Been. You. Ever since I saw your sorry ass for the first time on that threshold and you fucking poked me in the chest like I was a toy. We’ve been apart for ten years, Rose LeBlanc, and not even one day has passed without me thinking of you. And not just in passing. You know, the occasional she-could-have-been-a-g reat-fuck. I mean really taking my time to think about you. Wondering what you looked like. Where youwere. What you were doing. Who you were with. I stalked you on Facebook. And Twitter—which, by the way, you need to deactivate because you never once bothered to tweet—but you aren’t exactly a social media animal. I asked about you. Every time I was in town. And once I realized you were in New York with Millie…” “Rosie, I bought a new penthouse in TriBeca a few months before you moved into our building.” “Why are you telling me this?” She blinked away her tears, but fresh ones rolled down to replace them time. “Because I had to sell it and lost a shit-ton of money the moment I realized you were going to be my neighbor if I stayed in my current place. Real talk, Rosie, you are all I ever wanted. Even when you wanted me to be with your sister. She was a comforting candle. You were the dazzling sun. I’d lived in the dark—for your selfish ass. And if you think I’m going to settle for something , you’re dead wrong. I am taking everything . We will have kids, Rose LeBlanc. We will have a wedding. And we will have joy and vacations and days where we just fuck and days where we just fight and days where we just live. Because this is life, Baby LeBlanc, and I love the fuck out of you, so I’m going to give you the best one there is. Got it?

Consider an adult who tends to the traumas of a child: spilled milk, a broken toy, a scraped knee. As adults we know that kids have no clue of what constitutes a genuine problem, because inexperience greatly limits their childhood perspective. Children do not yet know that the world doesn’t revolve around them. As grown-ups, dare we admit to ourselves that we, too, have a collective immaturity of view? Dare we admit that our thoughts and behaviors spring from a belief that the world revolves around us? Apparently not. Yet evidence abounds. Part the curtains of society’s racial, ethnic, religious, national, and cultural conflicts, and you find the human ego turning the knobs and pulling the levers. Now imagine a world in which everyone, but especially people with power and influence, holds an expanded view of our place in the cosmos. With that perspective, our problems would shrink—or never arise at all—and we could celebrate our earthly differences while shunning the behavior of our predecessors who slaughtered one another because of them.

I’m like a Happy Meal without the toy.” Liam gave him an incredulous look. “Are you kidding? You’re like a Happy Meal with two toys.

Reductionism is like a kid who argues that whatever does not fit into his toy box is not a toy.

You were in business making meth? Do you have any idea what that drug does to people?" We weren't givin' it away," Concise snaps. "If someone was fool enough to mess himself up, that was his problem." I shake my head, disgusted. "If you build it, they will come." If you build it," Concise says, "you cover your rent. If you build it, you pay off the loan sharks. If you build it, you put shoes on your kid's feet and food in his belly and maybe even show up every now and then with a toy that every other goddamn kid in the school already has." He looks up at me. "If you build it, maybe your son don't have to, when he grow up." It is amazing -- the secrets you can keep, even when you are living in close quarters. "You didn't tell me." Concise gets up and braces his hands against the upper bunk. "His mama OD'd. He lives with her sister, who can't always be bothered to take care of him. I try to send money so that I know he's eatin' breakfast and gettin' school lunch tickets. I got a little bank account for him, too. Jus' in case he don't want to be part of a street gang, you know? Jus' in case he want to be an astronaut or a football player or somethin'." He digs out a small notebook from his bunk. "I'm writin' him. A diary, like. So he know who his daddy is, by the time he learn to read." It is always easier to judge someone than to figure out what might have pushed him to the point where he might do something illegal or morally reprehensible, because he honestly believes he'll be better off. The police will dismiss Wilton Reynolds as a drug dealer and celebrate one more criminal permanently removed from society. A middle-class father who meets Concise on the street, with his tough talk and his shaved head, will steer clear of him, never guessing that he, to, has a little boy waiting for him at home. The people who read about me in the paper, stealing my daughter during a custody visit, will assume I am the worst sort of nightmare.

Pull open the glass door, feel the rush of cool air, walk inside, get in line, and look around you, look at the kids working in the kitchen, at the customers in their seats, at the ads for the latest toys, study the backlit color photographs above the counter, think about where the food came from, about how and where it was made, about what is set in motion by every single fast food purchase, the ripple effect near and far, think about it. Then place your order. Or turn and walk out the door. It’s not too late. Even in this fast food nation, you can still have it your way.

We get trapped in power struggles. When our kids feel backed into a corner, they instinctually fight back or totally shut down. So avoid the trap. Consider giving your child an out: “Would you like to get a drink first, and then we’ll pick up the toys?” Or negotiate: “Let’s see if we can figure out a way for both of us to get what we need.” (Obviously, there are some non-negotiables, but negotiation isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of respect for your child and her desires.) You can even ask your child for help: “Do you have any suggestions?” You might be shocked to find out how much your child is willing to bend in order to bring about a peaceful resolution to the standoff.

Aidan had compared Bellingham to the Island of Misfit Toys, a sanctuary for the unwanted. But the problem, as I saw it, was that putting this many defective kids together only created more trouble.

I hate all electronic toys: cell phones, e-mail, PalmPilots, handheld Global Positioning System equipment, and the whole raft of gadgets that intrude on solitude. When I was a kid I used to disappear into the woods all day. Now I can walk in the wilderness without wasting my valuable time. As I hike along I can call anyone in the world, schedule an appointment, take a picture of me standing next to a tree and then send the person a map so he or she can join me there. Solitude has been snuffed out.

I wasn’t a lonely kid—I was good at being alone. I’d read books, play with the toy that I had, make up imaginary worlds. I lived inside my head. I still live inside my head. To this day you can leave me alone for hours and I’m perfectly happy entertaining myself. I have to remember to be with people. —

10 ways to raise a wild child. Not everyone wants to raise wild, free thinking children. But for those of you who do, here's my tips: 1. Create safe space for them to be outside for a least an hour a day. Preferable barefoot & muddy. 2. Provide them with toys made of natural materials. Silks, wood, wool, etc...Toys that encourage them to use their imagination. If you're looking for ideas, Google: 'Waldorf Toys'. Avoid noisy plastic toys. Yea, maybe they'll learn their alphabet from the talking toys, but at the expense of their own unique thoughts. Plastic toys that talk and iPads in cribs should be illegal. Seriously! 3. Limit screen time. If you think you can manage video game time and your kids will be the rare ones that don't get addicted, then go for it. I'm not that good so we just avoid them completely. There's no cable in our house and no video games. The result is that my kids like being outside cause it's boring inside...hah! Best plan ever! No kid is going to remember that great day of video games or TV. Send them outside! 4. Feed them foods that support life. Fluoride free water, GMO free organic foods, snacks free of harsh preservatives and refined sugars. Good oils that support healthy brain development. Eat to live! 5. Don't helicopter parent. Stay connected and tuned into their needs and safety, but don't hover. Kids like adults need space to roam and explore without the constant voice of an adult telling them what to do. Give them freedom! 6. Read to them. Kids don't do what they are told, they do what they see. If you're on your phone all the time, they will likely be doing the same thing some day. If you're reading, writing and creating your art (painting, cooking...whatever your art is) they will likely want to join you. It's like Emilie Buchwald said, "Children become readers in the laps of their parents (or guardians)." - it's so true! 7. Let them speak their truth. Don't assume that because they are young that you know more than them. They were born into a different time than you. Give them room to respectfully speak their mind and not feel like you're going to attack them. You'll be surprised what you might learn. 8. Freedom to learn. I realize that not everyone can homeschool, but damn, if you can, do it! Our current schools system is far from the best ever. Our kids deserve better. We simply can't expect our children to all learn the same things in the same way. Not every kid is the same. The current system does not support the unique gifts of our children. How can they with so many kids in one classroom. It's no fault of the teachers, they are doing the best they can. Too many kids and not enough parent involvement. If you send your kids to school and expect they are getting all they need, you are sadly mistaken. Don't let the public school system raise your kids, it's not their job, it's yours! 9. Skip the fear based parenting tactics. It may work short term. But the long term results will be devastating to the child's ability to be open and truthful with you. Children need guidance, but scaring them into listening is just lazy. Find new ways to get through to your kids. Be creative! 10. There's no perfect way to be a parent, but there's a million ways to be a good one. Just because every other parent is doing it, doesn't mean it's right for you and your child. Don't let other people's opinions and judgments influence how you're going to treat your kid. Be brave enough to question everything until you find what works for you. Don't be lazy! Fight your urge to be passive about the things that matter. Don't give up on your kid. This is the most important work you'll ever do. Give it everything you have.

Stop beating yourself up, and dang it, stop letting others do it too. Stop accepting less than you deserve. Stop buying things you can’t afford to impress people you don’t even really like. Stop eating your feelings instead of working through them. Stop buying your kids’ love with food, or toys, or friendship because it’s easier than parenting. Stop abusing your body and your mind. Stop! Just get off the never- ending track. Your life is supposed to be a journey from one unique place to another; it’s not supposed to be a merry- go- round that brings you back to the same spot over and over again. Your life doesn’t have to look like mine. Heck, your life doesn’t

Brody’s problem is that he has zero respect for the opposite sex. “Does he really refuse to take selfies with a girl, or was he making that up to toy with me?” Sabrina asks. “No, that’s a real thing for him. He thinks that any pictures of him with a girl pressed up to his side would drive other potential hookups away. Selfies are a sign of commitment.” He’d expounded on this topic at some length after instructing me to keep my Tinder account active and to not tell anyone I was having a kid. “Ugh. He’s so gross.” “I signed up for a fake Instagram account so I can troll him. When he posts something, I’ll wait a day or so and then pop on to comment about how cool it is that he and my grandpa are rocking the same shirt. I’ve done that twice now and each time, I’ve seen him shoving the shirt down the apartment’s trash compactor.” Sabrina throws back her head and cackles. “You do not.” “Hey, we all have to get our jollies somewhere, right? For me, it’s negging Brody on Instagram and choking my baby mama in breathing classes.

So our job as parents is not to make a particular kind of child. Instead, our job is to provide a protected space of love, safety, and stability in which children of many unpredictable kinds can flourish. Our job is not to shape our children’s minds; it’s to let those minds explore all the possibilities that the world allows. Our job is not to tell children how to play; it’s to give them the toys and pick the toys up again after the kids are done. We can’t make children learn, but we can let them learn.

When I met white kids' parents, they always asked me bullshit questions about race, where our family was "from," and used words like Oriental. I was like a toy in their house, but Joey's parents were Asian so it felt like family. I never felt like I had to carry the burden of the whole Chinese diaspora, or that everything I did was a statement about my people and where we're from. (84)

Coonskin caps and silly putty were just not going to cut it anymore. The good mother got her kids toys that were educational, that advanced gross and fine motor skills, that gave them the spatial sensibilities and design aptitude of Frank Lloyd Wright, and that taught Johnny how to read James Joyce at age three. God forbid that one second should pass where your child was idle and that you were not doing everything you could to promote his or her emotional, cognitive, imaginative, quantitative, or muscular development.

You should own stuff, but make sure they are indispensable stuff. A family of three can simplify to the point of owning just three beds, two couches, three dressers, one table, few chairs, one desk, eight plates, eight glasses, eight bowls and some toys and books for the kids.

Come on guys,” Ellie called to us from further up the sidewalk. Elodie, Clark and the kids must have already gone inside. “What’s taking so long?” “Jocelyn was just begging for sex, but I told her it was a highly inappropriate time for it,” Braden answered loudly, causing passersby to chuckle at him. Furious at him for so many reasons, I rushed down our stoop towards them. “That’s okay, sweetheart,” I answered just as loudly. “I have a toy that does a better job of it anyway.” With that I slammed into the pub where he couldn’t hound me in front of the kids.

My wife and I tend to overgift to our kids at Christmas. We laugh and feel foolish when a kid is so distracted with one toy that we must force them into opening the next, or when something grand goes completely unnoticed in a corner. How consumerist, right? How crassly American. How like God. We are all that overwhelmed kid, not even noticing our heartbeats, not even noticing our breathing, not even noticing that our fingertips can feel and pick things up, that pie smells like pie and that our hangnails heal and that honey-crisp apples are real and that dogs wag their tails and that awe perpetually awaits us in the sky. The real yearning, the solomonic state of mind, is caused by too much gift, by too many things to love in too short a time. Because the more we are given, the more we feel the loss as we are all made poor and sent back to our dust.

Oh Kay you are like a key that opens the door of my heart. Your charm crushes me. Like a clinking machete slicing my flesh thinly cutting my heart. Let you hit my neck with the longing that you create without compassion and mercy. Kay oh Kay there's no one like you in this world. Because for you, I'm a little kid who can cry for a stuffed toy. Wherever you sing, the rhythm of the music will accompany you. And let the dance floor come to you, twisting and lifting you in a dance that makes everyone crazy. Kay oh Kay you are my sickle machete. You are the dagger that stabbed my soul, you stoned me with the sweet needle of your innocent smile. You're the sweet mouth that sighs that moans that laughs that makes my soul restless. Kay oh Kay. Your sweet spit drips like the most sugary honey on my thirsty mind. I desire you from the most sordid nests, the most abominable paths and the most perverted thoughts. I want to taste the most delicious nectar of your flowers. Oh how you taint me with your fire. You trapped me with your innocence. With your nakedness that leads me astray. How you give hope that I do not have. You won a heart I didn't fight for. Kay oh Kay you are the only answer I never questioned. A destination I never expected but greeted me with joy. You are the reality that I never dreamed of but came true by itself. How do I accept you as you accept me with all the charm of your madness. Kay oh Kay my sunshine moon. You are my river and sea. Only you my eyes are fixed, only you my heart trembles. You let me be the key that enters the darkest hole of your soul. It is not in your majesty that my dreams wander, but in your intoxicating beauty. You have imprisoned my most wretched soul. Oh Kay you are my kitchen knife, my axe, my saw, my hammer, my screwdriver. You enslaved me in this unbreakable lust. I serve you like a stupid servant. A deaf and blind goat that only serves one master. You are the master of all this passion and madness. Everything I know about you is a lie. How did you deign to allow me to love someone other than you? Kay oh Kay, if truly adoring you will give me the true meaning of a poem, then how can you give me true love that you never had?

THE SENTIMENTALIZATION OF CHILDHOOD has produced a great many paradoxes. The most curious, however, may be that children have acquired more and more stuff the more useless they have become. Until the late nineteenth century, when kids were still making vital contributions to the family economy, they didn’t have toys as we know them. They played with found and household objects (sticks, pots, brooms). In his book Children at Play, the scholar Howard Chudacoff writes, “Some historians even maintain that before the modern era, the most common form of children’s play occurred not with toys but with other children—siblings, cousins, and peers.

I am a wordy writer, and often churn out pages on end without advancing the plot a jot. Hence I try to take my cue from a childhood impatience with any device that doesn't get somewhere. Even in his sprightly youth, Clippity had a problem with running in place—just like my first drafts—when the surface was too slick. As a kid, I was ingenious enough to smear green Plasticine on his rear hooves. Thus I discovered the importance of traction, as handy a concept in literature as for wind-up toys.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, a sledgehammer to smash the motherfucking shit out of the toys that are loud, broken, obnoxious and constantly being fought over, and the wisdom NOT to smash said toys because it would scare my children and it would really just be easier to uncork the wine and drink the entire bottle. Amen.

Unbreakable, would you thought they called me Mr. Glass Look back on my life like the ghost of Christmas past Toys R Us where I used to spend that Christmas cash And I still won't grow up, I'm a grown ass kid Swear I should be locked up for stupid shit that I did But I'm a champion, so I turned tragedy to triumph Make music that's fire, spit my soul through the wire

For my number-one favorite kill, I almost went with Johnny Depp being eaten alive and then regurgitated by his own bed in A Nightmare on Elm Street, but the winner, by a finger blade’s width, has to be the death of that feisty Tina (Amanda Wyss), who put up such a fight while I thrashed her about on the ceiling of her bedroom. Freddy loves a worthy adversary, especially if it’s a nubile teenaged girl. A close second goes to my hearing-impaired victim Carlos (Ricky Dean Logan) in Nightmare 6. In these uber-politically-correct times, it’s refreshing to remember what an equal opportunity killer Freddy always was. Not only does he pump up the volume on the hearing aid from hell, but he also adds a nice Latino kid to his body count. Today they probably wouldn’t even let Freddy force-feed a fat kid junk food. Dream death number three is found in a sequence from Nightmare 3. Freddy plays puppet master with victim Phillip (Bradley Gregg), converting his arm and leg tendons into marionette strings, then cutting them in a Freddy meets Verigo moment. The kiss of death Profressor Freddy gives Sheila (Toy Newkirk) is great, but not as good as Al Pacino’s in The Godfather, so my fourth pick is Freddy turning Debbie (Brooke Theiss) into her worst nightmare, a cockroach, and crushing her in a Roach Motel. A classic Kafka/Krueger kill. For my final fave, you will have to check out Freddy vs. Jason playing at a Hell’s Octoplex near you. Here’s a hint: the hockey-puck guy and I double team a member of Destiny’s Child. Yummy! Now where’s that Beyonce…

You know who used to scare me when I was a little kid? Snuggle the Bear." "Do I know Snuggle?" "In those TV ads for that fabric softener. Somebody would say how soft their robe was or their towels, and Snuggle the teddy bear would be hiding behind a pillow or creeping around under a chair, giggling." "He was just happy that people were pleased." "No, it was maniacal little giggle. And his eyes were glazed. And how did he get in all those houses to hide and giggle?" "You're saying Snuggle should've been charged with B and E?" "Absolutely. Most of the time when he giggled, he covered his mouth with one paw. I always thought he didn't want you to see his teeth." "Snuggle had bad teeth?" she asked. "I figured they were rows of tiny vicious fangs he was hiding. When I was maybe four or five, I used to have nightmares where I'd be in bed with a teddy bear, and it was Snuggle, and he was trying to chew open my jugular and suck the lifeblood out of me." She said, "So much about you suddenly makes more sense than it ever did before." "Maybe if we aren't cops someday, we can open a toy shop." "Can we run a toy shop and have guns?" "I don't see why not," he said.

I’m often asked about my generation, which some people call the Greatest Generation but which I also call the Hardy Generation. What made us hardy? The Depression years. We were not spoiled with money, that’s for sure. When we had disputes we didn’t use attorneys; we settled them on the street, even got broken bones and noses from fighting. In all ways we helped one another. We shared, we had neighborhood picnics, we made our own toys. (There were no toy stores; I built racing cars.) I also rode one of the first skateboards, with a box on the front. We had a single soccer ball for four or five blocks’ worth of kids; you were lucky if you got to kick it once. We had free time to burn. Distractions? Radio, yes, but no TV. Movies were only once a week. We were happier than people are today, despite the hard times. We overcame adversity and each time we did we enhanced our hardiness. We also knew how to win and lose gracefully.

I had told our kids in a thousand ways, “As you go through life with us, you will need a lot of things. You’ll get what you need — things like love, food, shelter, safety, values, structure, faith, opportunity, and an education. We are committed to seeing that you get what you need. But we also want you to know that you really don’t deserve anything. You can’t demand a toy, a phone, a laptop, or a car. That attitude won’t work with us. Need, yes; deserve, not so much.” The

I’m convinced that parents are the most essential key to unlocking the next generation’s curiosity, creativity, and innovation. So much can be said for providing a home full of books, art supplies, open-ended toys, and freedom to wander outdoors. Being stingy with screen time and generous with our attention to a child’s natural interests can translate the message to him or her that learning matters better than any standardized test. And for parents like myself, this may require questioning the same method by which they were educated. Not only has our modern method of education continually declined in its success since we ourselves went through the system; it has left us wanting more—more education for ourselves, and definitely more for our kids.

Consider an adult who tends to the traumas of a child: spilled milk, a broken toy, a scraped knee. As adults we know that kids have no clue of what constitutes a genuine problem, because inexperience greatly limits their childhood perspective. Children do not yet know that the world doesn’t revolve around them. As grown-ups, dare we admit to ourselves that we, too, have a collective immaturity of view? Dare we admit that our thoughts and behaviors spring from a belief that the world revolves around us?

Thomas had hated the whole idea of Santa Claus anyway. What was the point? Why do you tell kids that some weird fat guy who lives at the North Pole watches them all the time? Sorry, that’s just creepy. Even as a child, Thomas remembered sitting on a mall Santa’s lap and he smelled a little like piss and Thomas thought, “This guy is the one who brings me toys?” And why tell kids that anyway? Wouldn’t it be nicer to think your parents, who worked hard, gave you those presents instead of some creepy stranger?

GINGER. He and I established the most wonderful rapport. I think he's infatuated with me; he kept grabbing my ass and telling me how different I am. I think he senses the rebel in me. I've always been in rebellion ever since I was a kid. I remember how whenever my father's tell me to pick my toys up I'd stamp my foot and say "No" twice before picking them up. Oh, I was a mean one. My latest rebellion is my childhood religion; I've just rebelled against that. I used to be High Episcopalian. BONGI. What're you now? GINGER. Low Epicsopalian.

I can’t remember any of us Sheeran kids ever having a toy of our own. One Christmas we got a pair of roller skates to share. They were metal skates, and you could adjust the size. We learned to go without. And if we wanted something we had to fend for ourselves. I had my first job when I was seven, helping a guy clean out the ashes from cellars. And if I managed to get some work cutting somebody’s grass for spending money and my father found out about it, he’d wait up the block until I got paid, and then he’d come down and take the big coins and leave me maybe a dime. We

With the fate of Roe v. Wade now hanging in the balance, I'm calling for a special 'pro-life tax.' If the fervent prayers of the religious right are answered and abortion is banned, let's take it a step further. All good Christians should legally be required to pony up; share the financial burden of raising an unwanted child. That's right: put your money where your Bible is. I'm not just talking about paying for food and shelter or even a college education. All those who advocate for driving a stake through the heart of a woman's right to choose must help bear the financial burden of that child's upbringing. They must be legally as well as morally bound to provide the child brought into this world at their insistence with decent clothes to wear; a toy to play with; a bicycle to ride -- even if they don't consider these things 'necessities.' Pro-lifers must be required to provide each child with all those things they would consider 'necessary' for their own children. Once the kid is out of the womb, don't wash your hands and declare 'Mission Accomplished!' It doesn't end there. If you insist that every pregnancy be carried to term, then you'd better be willing to pay the freight for the biological parents who can't afford to. And -- like the good Christians that you are -- should do so without complaint.

What about this, then?” The metal surface rippled at his touch, stretching and splitting into a million thin wires that made it look like a giant version of one of those pin art toys Sophie used to play with as a kid. He tapped his fingers in a quick rhythm, and the pins shifted and sank, forming highs and lows and smooth, flat stretches. Sophie couldn’t figure out what she was seeing until he tapped a few additional beats and tiny pricks of light flared at the ends of each wire, bathing the scene in vibrant colors and marking everything with glowing labels. “It’s a map,” she murmured, making a slow circle around the table. And not just any map. A 3-D map of the Lost Cities. She’d never seen her world like that before, with everything spread out across the planet in relation to everything else. Eternalia, the elvin capital that had likely inspired the human myths of Shangri-la, was much closer to the Sanctuary than she’d realized, nestled into one of the valleys of the Himalayas—while the special animal preserve was hidden inside the hollowed-out mountains. Atlantis was deep under the Mediterranean Sea, just like the human legends described, and it looked like Mysterium was somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. The Gateway to Exile was in the middle of the Sahara desert—though the prison itself was buried in the center of the earth. And Lumenaria… “Wait. Is Lumenaria one of the Channel Islands?” she asked, trying to compare what she was seeing against the maps she’d memorized in her human geography classes. “Yes and no. It’s technically part of the same archipelago. But we’ve kept that particular island hidden, so humans have no idea it exists—well, beyond the convoluted stories we’ve occasionally leaked to cause confusion.

Consider an adult who tends to the traumas of a child: spilled milk, a broken toy, a scraped knee. As adults we know that kids have no clue of what constitutes a genuine problem, because inexperience greatly limits their childhood perspective. Children do not yet know that the world doesn’t revolve around them. As grown-ups, dare we admit to ourselves that we, too, have a collective immaturity of view? Dare we admit that our thoughts and behaviors spring from a belief that the world revolves around us? Apparently not. Yet evidence abounds. Part the curtains of society’s racial, ethnic, religious, national, and cultural conflicts, and you find the human ego turning the knobs and pulling the levers.

It's an old story," Julia says, leaning back in her chair. "Only for me, it's new. I went to school for industrial design. All my life I've been fascinated by chairs - I know it sounds silly, but it's true. Form meets purpose in a chair. My parents thought I was crazy, but somehow I convinced them to pay my way to California. To study furniture design. I was all excited at first. It was totally unlike me to go so far away from home. But I was sick of the cold and sick of the snow. I figured a little sun might change my life. So I headed down to L.A. and roomed with a friend of an ex-girlfriend of my brother's. She was an aspiring radio actress, which meant she was home a lot. At first, I loved it. I didn't even let the summer go by. I dove right into my classes. Soon enough, I learned I couldn't just focus on chairs. I had to design spoons and toilet-bowl cleaners and thermostats. The math never bothered me, but the professors did. They could demolish you in a second without giving you a clue if how to rebuild. I spent more and more time in the studio, with other crazed students who guarded their projects like toy-jealous kids. I started to go for walks. Long walks. I couldn't go home because my roommate was always there. The sun was too much for me, so I'd stay indoors. I spent hours in supermarkets, walking aisle to aisle, picking up groceries and then putting them back. I went to bowling alleys and pharmacies. I rode buses that kept their lights on all night. I sat in Laundromats because once upon a time Laundromats made me happy. But now the hum of the machines sounded like life going past. Finally, one night I sat too long in the laundry. The woman who folded in the back - Alma - walked over to me and said, 'What are you doing here, girl?' And I knew that there wasn't any answer. There couldn't be any answer. And that's when I knew it was time to go.

The Toys My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, I struck him, and dismiss'd With hard words and unkiss'd, —His Mother, who was patient, being dead. Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, I visited his bed, But found him slumbering deep, With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet From his late sobbing wet. And I, with moan, Kissing away his tears, left others of my own; For, on a table drawn beside his head, He had put, within his reach, A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone, A piece of glass abraded by the beach, And six or seven shells, A bottle with bluebells, And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, To comfort his sad heart. So when that night I pray'd To God, I wept, and said: Ah, when at last we lie with trancèd breath, Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say, 'I will be sorry for their childishness.

When you’re a little kid, you have something. Maybe it’s a blanket or a stuffed animal or whatever. For me, it was this stuffed prairie dog that I got one Christmas when I was like three. I don’t even know where they found a stuffed prairie dog, but whatever, it sat up on its hind legs and I called him Marvin, and I dragged Marvin around by his prairie dog ears until I was about ten. And then at some point, it was nothing personal against Marvin, but he started spending more time in the closet with my other toys, and then more time, until finally Marvin became a full-time resident of the closet. But for many years afterward, sometimes I would get Marvin out of the closet and just hang out with him for a while—not for me, but for Marvin. I realized it was crazy, but I still did it. And the thing I wanted to say to Tiny is that sometimes, I feel like his Marvin.

No psychic powers; I just happen to know how several of the big toy companies jack up their January and February sales. They start prior to Christmas with attractive TV ads for certain special toys. The kids, naturally, want what they see and extract Christmas promises for these items from their parents. Now here’s where the genius of the companies’ plan comes in: They undersupply the stores with the toys they’ve gotten the parents to promise. Most parents find those things sold out and are forced to substitute other toys of equal value. The toy manufacturers, of course, make a point of supplying the stores with plenty of these substitutes. Then, after Christmas, the companies start running the ads again for the other, special toys. That juices up the kids to want those toys more than ever. They go running to their parents whining, ‘You promised, you promised,’ and the adults go trudging off to the store to live up dutifully to their words.

Metaphor is the only possible language available to religion because it alone is honest about Mystery. The underlying messages that different religions and denominations use are often in strong agreement, but they use different images to communicate their own experience of union with God. That should not shock or disappoint anyone, unless they are still kids shouting, "This is my toy, and the rest of you can't touch it!" Jesus who is always using metaphors, says, for example, " There are other sheep I have that are not of this fold, and these I have to lead as well. They too listen to my voice" (John 10:16a). He is quite obviously talking metaphorically by calling people sheep. He is also saying that sometimes the outsider to the "flock" hears as well as the insider. Furthermore, he says that he cares about and he respects the "other sheep," which means that we should too. These are crucial points, and who refuse to mine the metaphor will miss them.

I hadn't told him the news yet, but in that same preternatural way he was always aware of what I was feeling or thinking, he could smell my lies a mile away. He was just giving me time to come to him. To tell him I'd be baking his bun for the next seven and a half months. ''I'm okay." Dex's chuckle filled my ears as he wrapped his arms around my chest from behind, his chin resting on the top of my head. "Just okay?" He was taunting me, I knew it. This man never did anything without a reason. And this reason had him resembling a mama bear. A really aggressive, possessive mama bear. Which said something because Dex was normally that way. I couldn't even sit around Mayhem without him or Sonny within ten feet. I leaned my head back against his chest and laughed. "Yeah, just okay." He made a humming noise deep in his throat. "Ritz," he drawled in that low voice that reached the darkest parts of my organs. "You're killin' me, honey." Oh boy. Did I want to officially break the news on the side of the road with chunks of puke possibly still on my face? Nah. So I went with the truth. "I have it all planned out in my head. I already ordered the cutest little toy motorcycle to tell you, so don't ruin it." A loud laugh burst out of his chest, so strong it rocked my body alongside his. I friggin' loved this guy. Every single time he laughed, I swear it multiplied. At this rate, I loved him more than my own life cubed, and then cubed again. "All right," he murmured between these low chuckles once he'd calmed down a bit. His fingers trailed over the skin of the back of my hand until he stopped at my ring finger and squeezed the slender bone. "I can be patient." That earned him a laugh from me. Patience? Dex? Even after more than three years, that would still never be a term I'd use to describe him. And it probably never would. He'd started to lose his shit during our layover when Trip had called for instructions on how to set the alarm at the new bar. "Dex, Ris, and Baby Locke, you done?" Sonny yelled, peeping out from over the top of the car door. "Are you friggin' kidding me?" I yelled back. Did everyone know? That slow, seductive smile crawled over his features. Brilliant and more affectionate than it was possible for me to handle, it sucked the breath out of me. When he palmed my cheeks and kissed each of my cheeks and nose and forehead, slowly like he was savoring the pecks and the contact, I ate it all up. Like always, and just like I always would. And he answered the way I knew he would every single time I asked him from them on, the way that told me he would never let me down. That he was an immovable object. That he'd always be there for me to battle the demons we could see and the invisible ones we couldn't. "Fuckin' love you, Iris," he breathed against my ear, an arm slinking around my lower back to press us together. "More than anything.

fad is a wave in the ocean, and a trend is the tide. A fad gets a lot of hype, and a trend gets very little. Like a wave, a fad is very visible, but it goes up and down in a big hurry. Like the tide, a trend is almost invisible, but it’s very powerful over the long term. A fad is a short-term phenomenon that might be profitable, but a fad doesn’t last long enough to do a company much good. Furthermore, a company often tends to gear up as if a fad were a trend. As a result, the company is often stuck with a lot of staff, expensive manufacturing facilities, and distribution networks. (A fashion, on the other hand, is a fad that repeats itself. Examples: short skirts for women and double-breasted suits for men. Halley’s Comet is a fashion because it comes back every 75 years or so.) When the fad disappears, a company often goes into a deep financial shock. What happened to Atari is typical in this respect. And look how Coleco Industries handled the Cabbage Patch Kids. Those homely dolls hit the market in 1983 and started to take off. Coleco’s strategy was to milk the kids for all they were worth. Hundreds of Cabbage Patch novelties flooded the toy stores. Pens, pencils, crayon boxes, games, clothing. Two years later, Coleco racked up sales of $776 million and profits of $83 million. Then the bottom dropped out of the Cabbage Patch Kids. By 1988 Coleco went into Chapter 11. Coleco died, but the kids live on. Acquired by Hasbro in 1989, the Cabbage Patch Kids are now being handled conservatively. Today they’re doing quite well.

Of course, I should have known the kids would pop out in the atmosphere of Roberta's office. That's what they do when Alice is under stress. They see a gap in the space-time continuum and slip through like beams of light through a prism changing form and direction. We had got into the habit in recent weeks of starting our sessions with that marble and stick game called Ker-Plunk, which Billy liked. There were times when I caught myself entering the office with a teddy that Samuel had taken from the toy cupboard outside. Roberta told me that on a couple of occasions I had shot her with the plastic gun and once, as Samuel, I had climbed down from the high-tech chairs, rolled into a ball in the corner and just cried. 'This is embarrassing,' I admitted. 'It doesn't have to be.' 'It doesn't have to be, but it is,' I said. The thing is. I never knew when the 'others' were going to come out. I only discovered that one had been out when I lost time or found myself in the midst of some wacky occupation — finger-painting like a five-year-old, cutting my arms, wandering from shops with unwanted, unpaid-for clutter. In her reserved way, Roberta described the kids as an elaborate defence mechanism. As a child, I had blocked out my memories in order not to dwell on anything painful or uncertain. Even as a teenager, I had allowed the bizarre and terrifying to seem normal because the alternative would have upset the fiction of my loving little nuclear family. I made a mental note to look up defence mechanisms, something we had touched on in psychology.

At the same time that middle- and upper-middle-class mothers were urged to pipe Mozart into their wombs when they're pregnant so their kids would come out perfectly tuned, the government told poor mothers to get the hell out of the house and get to work--no more children's aid for them. Mothers like us--with health care, laptops, and Cuisinarts--are supposed to replicate the immaculate bedrooms we see in Pottery Barn Kids catalogs, with their designer sheets and quilts, one toy and one stuffed animal atop a gleaming white dresser, and a white rug on the floor that has never been exposed to the shavings from hamster cages, Magic Markers accidentally dropped with their caps off, or Welche's grape juice.... we've been encouraged to turn our backs on other mothers who pick their kids' clothes out of other people's trash and sometimes can't buy a can of beans to feed them. How has it come to seem perfectly reasonable--even justified-- that one class of mother is suppoed to sew her baby's diapers out of Egyptian cotton from that portion of the Nile blessed by the god Osiris while another class of mother can't afford a single baby aspirin?

This kind of parenting was typical in much of Asia—and among Asian immigrant parents living in the United States. Contrary to the stereotype, it did not necessarily make children miserable. In fact, children raised in this way in the United States tended not only to do better in school but to actually enjoy reading and school more than their Caucasian peers enrolled in the same schools. While American parents gave their kids placemats with numbers on them and called it a day, Asian parents taught their children to add before they could read. They did it systematically and directly, say, from six-thirty to seven each night, with a workbook—not organically, the way many American parents preferred their children to learn math. The coach parent did not necessarily have to earn a lot of money or be highly educated. Nor did a coach parent have to be Asian, needless to say. The research showed that European-American parents who acted more like coaches tended to raise smarter kids, too. Parents who read to their children weekly or daily when they were young raised children who scored twenty-five points higher on PISA by the time they were fifteen years old. That was almost a full year of learning. More affluent parents were more likely to read to their children almost everywhere, but even among families within the same socioeconomic group, parents who read to their children tended to raise kids who scored fourteen points higher on PISA. By contrast, parents who regularly played with alphabet toys with their young children saw no such benefit. And at least one high-impact form of parental involvement did not actually involve kids or schools at all: If parents simply read for pleasure at home on their own, their children were more likely to enjoy reading, too. That pattern held fast across very different countries and different levels of family income. Kids could see what parents valued, and it mattered more than what parents said. Only four in ten parents in the PISA survey regularly read at home for enjoyment. What if they knew that this one change—which they might even vaguely enjoy—would help their children become better readers themselves? What if schools, instead of pleading with parents to donate time, muffins, or money, loaned books and magazines to parents and urged them to read on their own and talk about what they’d read in order to help their kids? The evidence suggested that every parent could do things that helped create strong readers and thinkers, once they knew what those things were. Parents could go too far with the drills and practice in academics, just as they could in sports, and many, many Korean parents did go too far. The opposite was also true. A coddled, moon bounce of a childhood could lead to young adults who had never experienced failure or developed self-control or endurance—experiences that mattered as much or more than academic skills. The evidence suggested that many American parents treated their children as if they were delicate flowers. In one Columbia University study, 85 percent of American parents surveyed said that they thought they needed to praise their children’s intelligence in order to assure them they were smart. However, the actual research on praise suggested the opposite was true. Praise that was vague, insincere, or excessive tended to discourage kids from working hard and trying new things. It had a toxic effect, the opposite of what parents intended. To work, praise had to be specific, authentic, and rare. Yet the same culture of self-esteem boosting extended to many U.S. classrooms.

How did the name misfit even come about?" Sam asked. "It's so... dumb." Willo laughed. "Well, it's really not," she said. "We used to call them all sorts of slang terms: kooks, greasers, killjoys, chumps, and we had to keep changing the name as times changed. We used nerds for a long time, and then we started calling them dweebs." Willo hesitated. "And then a group of kids wasn't so nice to your mom." "I had braces," Deana said. "I had pimples. I had a perm. You do the math." She smiled briefly, but Sam could tell the pain was still there. Deana continued: "And I worked here most of the time so I really didn't get a chance to do a lot with friends after school. It was hard." This time, Willo reached out to rub her daughter's leg. "Your mom was pretty down one Christmas," she said. "All of the kids were going on a ski trip to a resort in Boyne City, but she had to stay here and work during the holiday rush. She was moping around one night, lying on the couch and watching TV..." "... stuffing holiday cookies in my mouth," Deana added. "... and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer came on. She was about to change the channel, but I made her sit back down and watch it with me. Remember the part about the Island of Misfit Toys?" Sam nodded. Willo continued. "All of those toys that were tossed away and didn't have a home because they were different: the Charlie-in-the-Box, the spotted elephant, the train with square wheels, the cowboy who rides an ostrich..." "... the swimming bird," Sam added with a laugh. "And I told your mom that all of those toys were magical and perfect because they were different," Willo said. "What made them different is what made them unique." Sam looked at her mom, who gave her a timid smile. "I walked in early the next morning to open the pie pantry, and your mom was already in there making donuts," Willo said. "She had a big plate of donuts that didn't turn out perfectly and she looked up at me and said, very quietly, 'I want to start calling them misfits.' When I asked her why, she said, 'They're as good as all the others, even if they look a bit different.' We haven't changed the name since.

The men in grey were powerless to meet this challenge head-on. Unable to detach the children from Momo by bringing them under their direct control, they had to find some roundabout means of achieving the same end, and for this they enlisted the children's elders. Not all grown-ups made suitable accomplices, of course, but plenty did. [....] 'Something must be done,' they said. 'More and more kids are being left on their own and neglected. You can't blame us - parents just don't have the time these days - so it's up to the authorities.' Others joined in the chorus. 'We can't have all these youngsters loafing around, ' declared some. 'They obstruct the traffic. Road accidents caused by children are on the increase, and road accidents cost money that could be put to better use.' 'Unsupervised children run wild, declared others.'They become morally depraved and take to crime. The authorities must take steps to round them up. They must build centers where the youngsters can be molded into useful and efficient members of society.' 'Children,' declared still others, 'are the raw material for the future. A world dependent on computers and nuclear energy will need an army of experts and technicians to run it. Far from preparing children from tomorrow's world, we still allow too many of them to squander years of their precious time on childish tomfoolery. It's a blot on our civilization and a crime against future generations.' The timesavers were all in favor of such a policy, naturally, and there were so many of them in the city by this time that they soon convinced the authorities of the need to take prompt action. Before long, big buildings known as 'child depots' sprang up in every neighborhood. Children whose parents were too busy to look after them had to be deposited there and could be collected when convenient. They were strictly forbidden to play in the streets or parks or anywhere else. Any child caught doing so was immediately carted off to the nearest depot, and its parents were heavily fined. None of Momo's friends escaped the new regulation. They were split up according to districts they came from and consigned to various child depots. Once there, they were naturally forbidden to play games of their own devising. All games were selected for them by supervisors and had to have some useful, educational purpose. The children learned these new games but unlearned something else in the process: they forgot how to be happy, how to take pleasure in the little things, and last but not least, how to dream. Weeks passed, and the children began to look like timesavers in miniature. Sullen, bored and resentful, they did as they were told. Even when left to their own devices, they no longer knew what to do with themselves. All they could still do was make a noise, but it was an angry, ill-tempered noise, not the happy hullabaloo of former times. The men in grey made no direct approach to them - there was no need. The net they had woven over the city was so close-meshed as to seem inpenetrable. Not even the brightest and most ingenious children managed to slip through its toils. The amphitheater remained silent and deserted.

So what did you and Landon do this afternoon?” Minka asked, her soft voice dragging him back to the present. Angelo looked up to see that Minka had already polished off two fajitas. Damn, the girl could eat. “Landon gave me a tour of the DCO complex. I did some target shooting and blew up a few things. He even let me play with the expensive surveillance toys. I swear, it felt more like a recruiting pitch to get me to work there than anything.” Minka’s eyes flashed green, her full lips curving slightly. Damn, why the hell had he said it like that? Now she probably thought he was going to come work for the DCO. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t, not after just reenlisting for another five years. The army wasn’t the kind of job where you could walk into the boss’s office and say, “I quit.” Thinking it would be a good idea to steer the conversation back to safer ground, he reached for another fajita and asked Minka a question instead. “What do you think you’ll work on next with Ivy and Tanner? You going to practice with the claws for a while or move on to something else?” Angelo felt a little crappy about changing the subject, but if Minka noticed, she didn’t seem to mind. And it wasn’t like he had to fake interest in what she was saying. Anything that involved Minka was important to him. Besides, he didn’t know much about shifters or hybrids, so the whole thing was pretty damn fascinating. “What do you visualize when you see the beast in your mind?” he asked. “Before today, I thought of it as a giant, blurry monster. But after learning that the beast is a cat, that’s how I picture it now.” She smiled. “Not a little house cat, of course. They aren’t scary enough. More like a big cat that roams the mountains.” “Makes sense,” he said. Minka set the other half of her fourth fajita on her plate and gave him a curious look. “Would you mind if I ask you a personal question?” His mouth twitched as he prepared another fajita. He wasn’t used to Minka being so reserved. She usually said whatever was on her mind, regardless of whether it was personal or not. “Go ahead,” he said. “The first time we met, I had claws, fangs, glowing red eyes, and I tried to kill you. Since then, I’ve spent most of the time telling you about an imaginary creature that lives inside my head and makes me act like a monster. How are you so calm about that? Most people would have run away already.” Angelo chuckled. Not exactly the personal question he’d expected, but then again Minka rarely did the expected. “Well, my mom was full-blooded Cherokee, and I grew up around all kinds of Indian folktales and legends. My dad was in the army, and whenever he was deployed, Mom would take my sisters and me back to the reservation where she grew up in Oklahoma. I’d stay up half the night listening to the old men tell stories about shape-shifters, animal spirits, skin-walkers, and trickster spirits.” He grinned. “I’m not saying I necessarily believed in all that stuff back then, but after meeting Ivy, Tanner, and the other shifters at the DCO, it just didn’t faze me that much.” Minka looked at him with wide eyes. “You’re a real American Indian? Like in the movies? With horses and everything?” He laughed again. The expression of wonder on her face was adorable. “First, I’m only half-Indian. My dad is Mexican, so there’s that. And second, Native Americans are almost nothing like you see in the movies. We don’t all live in tepees and ride horses. In fact, I don’t even own a horse.” Minka was a little disappointed about the no-horse thing, but she was fascinated with what it was like growing up on an Indian reservation and being surrounded by all those legends. She immediately asked him to tell her some Indian stories. It had been a long time since he’d thought about them, but to make her happy, he dug through his head and tried to remember every tale he’d heard as a kid.