As someone who has been spending a lot of time with small children recently, as well as being a professional child myself, this HouChron article piqued my interest: “Are moms to blame for stagnant Hot Wheels sales?”
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That’s…dumb, at least from my viewpoint. My childhood was a while back, but I don’t think moms ever get the toys their kids play with. At least, the male children. The girls: moms probably get Barbie, and maybe some other toys. But I don’t think moms ever get G.I. Joe, or Spiderman, or, yes, Hot Wheels.
Just for grins, I sent this to a mom I know who has boys and a house full of Hot Wheels. Her response: “Whoever said that at Mattel is full of poop.” As she went on to point out, moms get what kids ask for, within reason. The moms I know don’t buy everything their kids want, but if they’re out at the store and the kids behave reasonably well, they don’t have any problem buying one or two Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars as a reward. Even an unemployed but indulgent uncle can pick up a couple of Hot Wheels just so they don’t come over empty-handed.
(As a side note: my recollection is that Hot Wheels when I was a child sold for about $1, in 1970 money, or $5.98 in 2013 dollars. Today, Hot Wheels at my local grocery store sell for about $1, or 17 cents in 1970 money.)
(Also as a side note: I played with Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars interchangeably. Hot Wheels rolled more smoothly, but Matchbox cars were more realistic.)
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Setting aside the incomplete thought at the end of the sentence, I understand what she’s driving at here. I support the idea of giving kids toys that encourage what I’ll call “imaginative play”. But when I watch the kids I know play with Hot Wheels, they are playing with them in imaginative ways. My own childhood memories match that: I remember building tracks, both with the Hot Wheels track sets and with household objects, and playing with Hot Wheels in an unstructured, unguided, imaginative way.
(The HouChron writer mentions things like Magna-Tiles and Legos. Magna-Tiles are before my time, and I don’t know any kids who have those. Legos are great; I loved Legos when I was a kid. But what I see now is that Legos are moving away from unstructured, unguided, imaginative play, and in the direction of structured, guided, not imaginative play. For example, Harry Potter and Star Wars Lego kits.)
As you know from my “poop” remark, I concur with your assessment. I also think you’re correct in your assessment of the trend at Legos. Duplos, the larger blocks for younger kids, are still sold in large buckets with a variety of pieces, but when I see Legos for sale, they’re always as designed sets. A kid could, theoretically, get a bunch of sets and make something different, but Lego itself seems to push the idea of buying and assembling a specific item from the enclosed directions. A better example of unguided toys available in formats that encouraged unguided play might be Lincoln logs or tinker toys. But given the antics and conversations imagined for cars at my house, I’d say Hot Wheels work well for imaginative play, too.