Childhood present spinoff: what did you want that your parents wouldn't buy you?

[Anonymous]

I had the Snoopy Snow Cone machine and loved it. So much that I recently bought one for my kids. Bu now I'm the one complaining about having to crank out all that snowcone.

There wasn't a lot that I didn't get. My parents were divorced and my grandparents really overcompensated for that.

[Anonymous]

an atari, the Annie doll house (got a homemade doll house my step dad copied from a sear's catalog...at age 8 I was NOT impressed,) that doll you could feed, that other doll that rollerskated

[Anonymous]

Cabbage Patch doll when I was younger;
Guess tulip leg (or was it an ankle zipper?) jeans and Benetton rugby shirt when I was a preteen. Too expensive.

[Anonymous]

The game "Operation". I always played that game at friends houses. My parents wouldn't buy me one. But I did get a pony. Unfortunately, we never could catch her and when we did we couldn't get the bridle on her.

[Anonymous]

Oh where do I start... Apparently I was so traumatized to not get everything I ever asked for that I made a solemn age-6 promise to get my own children WHATEVER they wanted. Heh. Yeah, right.

So the coveted things not on my receiving list were:

1. Bike ("It's not that we don't trust you, it's that we don't trust car drivers!" Didn't help that my father once almost hit a bike rider he didn't see, and my elementary principal's teen son was killed when he was smooshed between a truck and a car. )

2. Snoopy Sno Cone; Easy Bake Oven; Hot Wheels Drag Race tracks; and almost anything "mainstream" toy-related. Parents wanted to buy wood toys that they thought wouldn't hurt their own eyes if left strewn about the living room. Curses!

3. Anything Barbie-doll. I got the hand me downs from my much cooler and older cousins, but by then their dog likely had already chewed up a leg or an arm or something. So my Barbies were disfigured in some way. Funny, I didn't really care, they were still precious!

4. Anything Disney princess. My father thought it too treakley, and my mother, not from the US, didn't understand the appeal of what she called "dumb women in big dresses." They were foolish, of course.

5. Wood-soled leather clogs (Mum said, "I escaped from a country where people were so poor they had to wear wooden shoes, and I'm not going to spend an outrageous $20 (again, think 1979) on a pair of wooden flip flops!" Argh, mom, you are so uncool.)

6. Atari or any other electronic game. (No beeping and linking!!!" Any surprise I can barely power up my own laptop? )


We did get some cool stuff, though. We got acrylic and oil paints, canvases, and paint brushes (the real things!); a microscope; roller and ice skates; crafty kits like macrame (hey, this was the 70s okay?); Madame Alexander dolls (one per major holiday); and "educational" board games like Medical Monopoly or Circulation or Weltreise which actually were not that bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh where do I start... Apparently I was so traumatized to not get everything I ever asked for that I made a solemn age-6 promise to get my own children WHATEVER they wanted. Heh. Yeah, right.

So the coveted things not on my receiving list were:

1. Bike ("It's not that we don't trust you, it's that we don't trust car drivers!" Didn't help that my father once almost hit a bike rider he didn't see, and my elementary principal's teen son was killed when he was smooshed between a truck and a car. )

2. Snoopy Sno Cone; Easy Bake Oven; Hot Wheels Drag Race tracks; and almost anything "mainstream" toy-related. Parents wanted to buy wood toys that they thought wouldn't hurt their own eyes if left strewn about the living room. Curses!

3. Anything Barbie-doll. I got the hand me downs from my much cooler and older cousins, but by then their dog likely had already chewed up a leg or an arm or something. So my Barbies were disfigured in some way. Funny, I didn't really care, they were still precious!

4. Anything Disney princess. My father thought it too treakley, and my mother, not from the US, didn't understand the appeal of what she called "dumb women in big dresses." They were foolish, of course.

5. Wood-soled leather clogs (Mum said, "I escaped from a country where people were so poor they had to wear wooden shoes, and I'm not going to spend an outrageous $20 (again, think 1979) on a pair of wooden flip flops!" Argh, mom, you are so uncool.)

6. Atari or any other electronic game. (No beeping and linking!!!" Any surprise I can barely power up my own laptop? )


We did get some cool stuff, though. We got acrylic and oil paints, canvases, and paint brushes (the real things!); a microscope; roller and ice skates; crafty kits like macrame (hey, this was the 70s okay?); Madame Alexander dolls (one per major holiday); and "educational" board games like Medical Monopoly or Circulation or Weltreise which actually were not that bad.

.

That's funny! So many people today are anti-plastic, anti-Disney, anti-mainstream... I wonder if 25 years from now, their kids will be on a message board griping about the toys they didn't get. LOL!

[Anonymous]

ok, so I'm the OP and I have to say two things:
(1) I was a little worried I'd get flamed for being either trivial (why post this when there are starving kids in Darfur) or entitled. (who the hell cares about what you didn't get as a child?)
(2) I had no idea I was lucky in getting both an Easy Bake Oven and a Lite Brite! And barbie Fashion plates! AND Shrinky Dinks! Thanks for making me feel like my childhood was actually pretty blessed. (my tongue is firmly in cheek - my parents were awesome.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh where do I start... Apparently I was so traumatized to not get everything I ever asked for that I made a solemn age-6 promise to get my own children WHATEVER they wanted. Heh. Yeah, right.

So the coveted things not on my receiving list were:

1. Bike ("It's not that we don't trust you, it's that we don't trust car drivers!" Didn't help that my father once almost hit a bike rider he didn't see, and my elementary principal's teen son was killed when he was smooshed between a truck and a car. )

2. Snoopy Sno Cone; Easy Bake Oven; Hot Wheels Drag Race tracks; and almost anything "mainstream" toy-related. Parents wanted to buy wood toys that they thought wouldn't hurt their own eyes if left strewn about the living room. Curses!

3. Anything Barbie-doll. I got the hand me downs from my much cooler and older cousins, but by then their dog likely had already chewed up a leg or an arm or something. So my Barbies were disfigured in some way. Funny, I didn't really care, they were still precious!

4. Anything Disney princess. My father thought it too treakley, and my mother, not from the US, didn't understand the appeal of what she called "dumb women in big dresses." They were foolish, of course.

5. Wood-soled leather clogs (Mum said, "I escaped from a country where people were so poor they had to wear wooden shoes, and I'm not going to spend an outrageous $20 (again, think 1979) on a pair of wooden flip flops!" Argh, mom, you are so uncool.)

6. Atari or any other electronic game. (No beeping and linking!!!" Any surprise I can barely power up my own laptop? )


We did get some cool stuff, though. We got acrylic and oil paints, canvases, and paint brushes (the real things!); a microscope; roller and ice skates; crafty kits like macrame (hey, this was the 70s okay?); Madame Alexander dolls (one per major holiday); and "educational" board games like Medical Monopoly or Circulation or Weltreise which actually were not that bad.

.

That's funny! So many people today are anti-plastic, anti-Disney, anti-mainstream... I wonder if 25 years from now, their kids will be on a message board griping about the toys they didn't get. LOL!

I am the one who posted about this, and well, the truth is I have become my parents. Except that one of the grandmoms is all about providing the coveted toys which -- to be fair -- my DD loves! For example, we are swimming in Disney princess dresses. Oy. But the longer term effect on just me is that I think I am somewhat less materialistic and have a dulled sense of urgency to get the latest and greatest gadget etc. I am a "late adopter" of most things. I do, however, have less of a problem spending money on things that will last and last and last. Just like the toys our parents got us and that are still A-OK for their granddaughter to play with. Wooden blocks, musical instruments, "Little People" Playschool toys, etc. They've endured over 30 years!

[Anonymous]

I drooled over the American girl catalogs and desperately wanted Samantha. Never got her, we didn't have enough money. They retired that doll last year I think, and you better believe I seriously considered purchasing her for myself. Didn't do it though!

[Anonymous]

Oh yeah, those American Girl catalogs were probably the bane of my parents' lives for a few years. Because the truth is, I wouldn't have been happy with just the doll. No, I wanted the extra outfits, and the furniture and accessories too. I added up the cost of all the items on ONE PAGE one year. And figured out that it equalled about four years' allowance.

[Anonymous]

I remember wanting jumping shoes (the type of shoes with spring on the bottom). I think I got them, but they were crap (of course).

Toy wise, I realize I got everything I wanted from my mom. She must have spent a fortune.

But she never let me have jeans or levis corduroys. I think she thought they were sloppy clothes. So I used to drool over this one girl's collection of levis. I had one stinking pair of corduroys. When I connected like 30 years later on Facebook with their friend, she remembered the one pair of corduroys I had ("Oh yeah, the light blue ones!")

[Anonymous]

An Easy Bake Oven.

My father: "That is just a box with a light bulb. You can use the big oven."

I have to admit that when DD received one for her birthday from a friend, I was just a tad excited, myself!

[Anonymous]

Another one who wanted an EZ Bake oven... My mom said "If you want to bake a cake, we can bake a real cake in the regular oven."
Mom. Mom. Mom. It's just not the same as baking a little teeny cake in those miniature pans using a lightbulb. sigh.

Fast forward about 40 years, and I bought myself, er, my DDs, an EZ Bake oven... Returned it the next day cuz it was crap.

On a different toy topic, we did have this cool toy but I can't remember the name (so I can try to find it again on ebay)... It had metal molds that you poured different colored goop into, and then baked it (can't remember if you baked it in the real oven or if it came with something). When it finished you had little rubbery figures (We had the Peanuts/Snoopy molds.) Years later, I think I saw them but with creepy-crawlers molds... Anyone remember what these things were called??

[Anonymous]

I just got a free Snoopy Snowcone Machine!

DD really wants one, but it was $25 on Amazon, not sure why - is it a hot toy this year? So forget it, that thing isn't worth five bucks.

BUT, I was shopping on Barnesandnoble.com today (they have awesome toys, with the exception of the Snoopy Snocone Machine, I guess) and they have buy 2 toys get one free (only certain toys are free). So I got that silly thing for free!

[Anonymous]

After reading 5 pages of this thread, I'm kinda feelin' like a cliche, but here are mine:

1. Lite Brite (little parts to get lost and/or stepped on);

2. Easy Bake Oven (fire hazard/we already have an oven); and

3. Barbie Dream House (sexist, demeaning to women, etc.)


Regarding #3 and all things Barbie, I wonder if it was a sign of the times that so many of our moms opposed Barbie, or whether people on DCUM would do the same, even though they coveted her? I only have a DS, so I likely won't have to address this issue in my own family.