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Lynne Randall doesn’t buy all the toys that show up at her house. They just kind of happen.
There’s the play kitchen her 3-year-old son inherited from his cousins. There’s the “random stuff” her mother-in-law buys online, all of it plastic and made up of countless tiny pieces. There’s the kid-sized workbench — Randall got that from her local Buy Nothing group, where neighbors can offload used items (and pick up more).
The sheer volume of stuff her son has to play with is overwhelming, Randall told Vox. The day we talked, she and her family were having guests at their Pacific Northwest home, so she was attempting to declutter, “finding all the parts and putting food in the toy kitchen and putting the tools in the workbench.” But it was always a losing battle.
It’s a familiar refrain among parents: One reader told Vox recently that her family was “absolutely drowning in toys.” And while adults have been complaining about kids’ junk for generations (please see my father’s fruitless search for my brother’s one-inch-long toy wrench in Los Angeles International Airport circa 1992), many millennial and Gen X parents have the sense that something is different now — that kids have more toys than in past decades, and that they seem to arrive in ways Randall describes as “unintentional.”
Historical data on the average number of toys per kid is surprisingly hard to come by, but there is evidence that Americans’ toy glut is increasing — and it’s not just a problem for affluent households.
US toy sales jumped from $22.3 billion in 2019 to $26 billion in 2020, and then to $30.1 billion in 2021, as parents struggled to entertain their kids at home during the pandemic. Sales dipped slightly in 2023, perhaps because of inflation, but remain solidly above 2019 levels.
“I don’t think we’ll ever go back,” Juli Lennett, a vice president and industry adviser for toys at the market research firm Circana, told me.
Shelves overflowing with cars and blocks and action figures can be just as stressful for kids as they are for parents. Sometimes “kids don’t play with anything, because there’s just too many options,” said Sarah Davis, a parenting coach and co-author of the book Modern Manners for Moms and Dads. Meanwhile, an overemphasis on acquiring new toys can foster materialism, which is linked with anxiety and depression.
Stemming the tide of clutter is easier said than done since toys often come from grandparents or other loved ones, or even from parties at school. But experts say there are certain characteristics that kids’ favorite toys share. And by focusing on those, grown-ups may be able not only to save money and space, but also to help kids have more fun.
Still, I get the struggle. Recently, I was taking a shower when I noticed a pink plastic rat in the drain.
Why kids have so many toys
In the early 2000s, a team led by archaeologist Jeanne E. Arnold counted up the possessions of 32 self-identified middle-class families. The average family in their sample had 139 toys visibly on display, with “untold numbers” out of sight in closets or under beds, the authors wrote in a 2012 book about the research. One girl’s room contained 165 Beanie Babies, 22 Barbie dolls, 36 “human/animal figurines,” and one miniature castle. “Spilling out of children’s bedrooms and into living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, and parents’ bedrooms, the playthings of America’s kids are ubiquitous in middle-class homes,” the authors wrote.
That problem has only worsened, with several factors contributing to the overflow. Unlike most other categories of products, childrens’ playthings have actually gotten cheaper over the last 30 years, Business Insider’s Katie Notopoulos reported. A toy that cost $20 in 1993 would retail for just $4.68 today, in part because of lower production costs as manufacturing moved overseas. Those rock-bottom prices make it easier for grown-ups to buy kids that extra doll or car or guinea pig in a shark suit.
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Joey Sendaydiego/Vox
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