My rant as a concerned parent

He knows the names of all of the Thomas the Tank Engine characters, and talks about them like they are close, personal friends.

I receive frequent requests to watch DVDs or read books about Manna-the-pooh (whinnie-the-pooh).

He's been able to rattle off the songs from Dora the Explorer since very early on in his language development.

It's hard to believe that at the age of 2 (with extremely limited exposure to television) he's become so enamored with these popular childhood figures. It's actually kind of disturbing. The toy industry is already sucking us in. After a great deal of hesitation, I bought baby boy a wooden Thomas toy for Christmas. He plays with Thomas toys all the time at his caregiver's house and I know he'll be overjoyed when he opens his gift.

As soon as I got it home I checked the serial number to make sure it wasn't among the Thomas toys that were recently recalled due to high levels of lead in the paint. Even though it came up clean, I still feel a bit hesitant to give it to him. I feel the same way about toys made by Matel (speaking of massive recalls!) or any other toy company for that matter.

Can we really be confident that the toys we buy are safe? How can I be sure that our toy box isn't a toxic waste pile? It certainly contains a lot of plastic -- another thing that I'm not overly happy about these days. It's bad enough that many sippy cups and baby bottles contain bisphenol-A and who knows what other sorts of nastiness in them. Kids (and adults for that matter) live in a plastic universe. Just read this blog, if you are interested in knowing just how much plastic we are exposed to each and every day. Are we slowly poisoning our children (and ourselves) without even knowing it?


Then there are the child car seat recalls.

Medications full of dye.

Salt and sugar laden, pre-packaged food (crap) that advertisers try to make us feel good about feeding our families.

Products that are STILL on the shelves that should have been removed years ago (i.e. bumper pads and bathing rings). What company, in good conscience, still sells these items?

When I took prenatal classes, I was told to throw away any baby powder or baby oil found in the medicine cabinet. The oil is hazardous to ingest, and powder dangerous to inhale. Apparently the baby industry hasn't caught onto this yet, because these products are still lining store shelves. And there are a lot of parents out there who, like me, had no idea that any of these items were unsafe.

So you see why I'm holding my nose about putting a Thomas toy under the tree this year? Maybe it's not too late to get a refund....