Play is a
formative part of a child’s life. It
both directs and is directed by his interests.
There is an
opinion out there that a child’s play should be exclusively self-directed and
that everything, even the education of the child, should be formed around his
or her interests. While there may be
some merit to this perspective, we have found from our experience, that our
children often find themselves drawn – if left to themselves – to horribly
cheesy books and toys that have no virtue of themselves but are attractive
primarily due to flashy colors, obnoxious noises and ridiculous characters.
Frankly, I
regard Satan as the author of this unexplainable leaning toward the ugly,
artificial, and mass-produced in many children (I’ve seen it in more children
than just my own). Beauty comes from
the hand of God and is intrinsically linked to the truth, and it only makes
sense that the father of lies would try to tempt people away from it.
Maybe there
was a time when parents could be completely “hands-off” and let their
children’s play be self-directed…you know, like back when kids played with
rocks and sticks, but we strongly believe that now is NOT that time. The world is trying to get hold of our
children early. Flashy commercials and cartoons
draw them in and whisper in their ear that they will be happier if they have
this and this and this. They instill in
them the mindset that happiness can be purchased. They lie to our children as they promise that material goods will
satisfy their longing hearts.
This is why
we make the toys that we do – primarily for our own children. I don’t want their heroes to be factory-made
commercial figures out of the mind of some Japanese animator. I want their heroes to be the unique
masterpieces of God Himself as He wrought holiness by His grace in the souls of
His Saints.
I don’t
want my children to be lured by artificial, flashy colors and surrounded by
synthetic plastics. I want them to
learn to love the colors and materials of the earth that came from the hand of
God. These toys are simple, wooden
toys, handmade with love by caring parents – not plastic toys made in factories
across the world that are designed by multi-million dollar corporations and made
by abused women and children.
The time is
long past for status-quo parenting – for going with the flow. It is time to swim upstream, to struggle
against the current and work to protect our children from the clutching grasp
of a commercial system that seeks to instill the deadly sins in them in order
to make a profit.
If we and
our handmade toys can be of service to you in this, we would be honored to help
you. Please let us know if you are
interested in any of the toys that we have made or if you have something in
mind that we might be able to make.
We
intentionally restrict our toy-making to simple, holy toys that revolve around
the lives of the Saints and direct children’s imaginations to sanctity and
simplicity. We have found that
storylines are particularly helpful as children play. For instance, we have the cottage and barn of
St. Isidore and St. Maria with which our sons can act out the beautiful stories
of Isidore bringing home beggars for dinner, or of Isidore’s feeding the birds,
or of Isidore’s plowing the field with angelic help. With the church, they can enact Isidore and Maria’s daily
attendance at Mass before work.
These same
sets can be used of many other saints as well.
It is a beautiful way to involve the whole family in the holy play of
the children. They need their parents
to tell them the stories of the saints that can form the way they play and the
way they grow.
If we are
going to raise saints, then let our children be surrounded by the Saints even
as they play. Because it is infinitely
better to play “Mass” or “St. Francis” than it is to play “Pokemon.”
I can tell
you from the personal experience of my own childhood and from six years of
parenting: If a child’s imagination is formed by video games, he will become
dissatisfied with reality; if a child’s imagination is formed by the lives of
the Saints, he will become dissatisfied with mediocrity.
In His
Heart,
Wes
p.s. Unfortunately, we don’t make the horses that you see in
the picture. Someday I would like to
get to whittling the animals for the children to play with, but I have not been
able to do any of that yet.
