Dad Turned Dad Episode 23: Do Babies Really Need Christmas Presents?

My son is lucky. He has it all. He’s eight months old and his nursery looks like the office Secret Santa at Lehman Brothers. All four grandparents are flexing their credit cards this holiday season. Dude is cute so dude gets gifts. But, as a father, I’m not so excited about my son’s new wealth.

How to put this simply? Babies don’t need gifts.

In my home, we have four to five toys that make the starting lineup for our son. He loves them. He has not hit an age yet where toys bore him. He has many more than he needs. There are plushies and books collecting dust in his room. You know what he really wants to play with? Whatever his mother and I have in our hands at any given moment.

There’s a long tradition of babies ignoring toys for the cords in your house. Someone should publish a study on the transfixing properties of the remote control. He has toys with buttons. But they’re the wrong buttons. He wants the remote control. And the computer — or at least some cords to chew on. He’s mad for electronics but indifferent to electricity. He also likes boxes, which is nice because other things tend to come in them.

Your children are gifts, but this holiday season, they really don’t need them. All kids need are you, some attention, and a pile of trash. Bonus points if there’s a box in the trash pile. That said, there are still some fun gifts out there….