Made in China

I don’t know about you guys, but the big Mattel-Fisher-Price-China recall has caught me off guard. I’m so use to buying products made elsewhere that I don’t even pay attention to where the items were made. Until recently, I didn’t care if the toys I bought were made in China, Taiwan, Mexico, and other places where labor is relatively cheap. My thinking was, they are just toys. It wasn’t like I was buying cheap drugs overseas. How wrong could I be.

When I buy toys, I ask myself questions like: are there any small parts my toddler might swallow, will my kid poke someone in eye with the toy, and of course, how much does the toy cost? It didn’t really occur to me that a toy might be coated with lead and result in lead poisoning. It also didn’t occur to me small magnets could kill. In the past, when I looked at toys with tiny magnets, I figure they could fall out and might get swallowed. I thought that since the magnets are so small, they would just come out the other end. It didn’t occur to me that if two magnets were swallowed, they could pinch something inside the body and cause death.

There’s also the issue of price. In general, I equate price with quality. A cheap toy was just that — a cheap toy. It probably wasn’t made as well as a higher priced toy, but it was just a toy. I don’t need a toy to last forever. With my kids, they are just as likely to break an expensive toy as a cheap toy. So why pay double for the same toy just because it was made in America? But as we all know now, price comes at a cost.

Before I had kids, I use to be relatively carefree. Now that I am a father of three, I worry all the time about people and things that can harm my kids. Now I have to worry about toys too? As I hinted at previously, my main toy concerns in the past were about parts that could be swallowed and pointed toys that could poke an eye. Now I have to worry about lead paint, small magnets, and who knows what else. It’s hard to believe toys can be so dangerous to our children. Is this insane or what?

More info: Mattel Recall | Recalls.gov