“I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us Kid.”
If you raised children during the heyday of the retail toy store chain, Toys R Us, then you are almost certainly familiar with that slogan… and likely “sang it” as you read it in the style of their commercial advertisements. As I write this today in 2024, that generation of Toys R Us kids who “didn’t want to grow up” are (technically speaking) all grown up. But are they, really? And if not, who’s to blame?
We’ve all read articles from business owners and corporate executives who decry that the Millennial generation wasn’t ready for the workforce. Rather than understanding the necessity of hard work / work ethic and sacrifice, many millennials were more concerned about having “safe spaces” at the workplace. A few years ago, while at a popular national health food grocery store, I ordered a couple slices of pizza from the deli. When it was taken out of the oven too soon (it was floppy rather than a cooked crust), I kindly asked the deli employee if she’d please cook it a bit longer. She literally ran off crying in the designated “safe space” because she felt I “insulted her ability to make a pizza.” Clearly, she has no business working in hospitality or service industries. Furthermore, I know first hand of executives who, when scouting college recruits to join their companies, had to offer not just a decent starting job and an attractive salary… but also “entertainment stipends” for the incoming college recruits that they could use for beer money, happy hours, and nightlife. These executives explained that they couldn’t successfully recruit Millennial generation college candidates to fill all the necessary jobs without offering such “entertainment stipends” and excessive leniency with regards to time off. When I was of the college recruit age, I could never imagine demanding an employer give me excessive days off for personal reasons or “entertainment stipends.” We were happy to get the foot in the door and start working up the ladder.
Could the reason that we lost the virtue of honest work ethic be traced to a “Toys R Us” mentality of raising children? Think about the advertisements geared toward children. We created a society that:
- Taught children to play all day rather than start learning to mature and understand the need to work through simple chores
- Feel entitled to have a luxurious and never ending supply of expensive new toys
- And all so that corporate execs and shareholders could earn higher and higher profits (believe me, these execs weren’t interested in your children’s well being)
Every birthday or special occasion seemed to suddenly have to be celebrated at expensive places that charged exorbiant fees to let children come inside and play. But in our day, we were happy to have a few friends go to a park and throw a baseball.
I can’t help but think of the story of the three young shepherd children from the story of Fatima. It was only about 100 years ago – not that far back, really. These children worked as shepherds, ages roughly 6-10 years of age. They had responsibilities, chores, and real work. They also had playtime and they loved music and dancing. But their playtime was simple. They played games like buttons, they played with pebbles… simple children’s games that cost nothing to play. And something else… their play time came AFTER their prayer time. These children were expected to pray the rosary, learn their faith, prepare for their First Communion, etc.
But advance ahead to today’s world. It’s not just 6-10 year olds… we treat young adults in their 20s like children and expect very little from them! What happened to us? It’s like the Toys R Us slogan came true. These children were Toys R Us kids. They didn’t want to grow up. And, sadly, parents enabled that to happen.
I’m not being judgmental. Truth be told, I was one of those parents. I look back now and realize the mistakes I made. The mistakes our entire generation made (I’m a Gen X parent, born in 1974). And now we have at least two generations who, for the most part, have grown up without understanding work ethic, responsibility, accountability, and most importantly, with no regard for God. Of course there are exceptions to the rule and not every kid turned out immature and unprepared. But I do speak in generalities and I hold to my statements. How I hope that new parents today learn from our mistakes and prepare a new generation who will excel beyond our wildest dreams and imaginations.
This led me to think about our own spiritual lives. In our spiritual life, have we become “Toys R Us” Catholics? Do we only scratch the surface of our faith without ever diving into the “hard stuff”? Compared to 2000 years of Church history, how deep is our knowledge of the faith and theology? Have we read every Stephen King or James Patterson book but only read a few verses from the Bible in the forms of memes passed around social media? Do we pray – with meaning and intention – for a significant period of time each day? How often do we go to Eucharistic Adoration? How often do we go to Confession?
The Catholic Faith is an over-flowing and bottomless treasure chest of spiritual jewels to discover, if we’d only seek them. It’s easy to look at the “Toys R Us” generation of kids who never grew up to be responsible, mature, and accountable citizens… but have we, ourselves, grown up to be responsible, mature, and accountable Christians? It’s a fair question. Plank, meet Speck.
My point in this is not to criticize or judge. It’s to (how I despise the expression I’m about to use) raise awareness (I can’t believe I used that expression) so that we don’t fail to mature in our faith.
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” – 1 Cor 13:11, ESV-CE