Toys

When we were kids, dad built an HO-scale train layout. He also liked building engines and railcars from kits and was a friend of Mr. English, who owned Bowser Manufacturing (a well-known model train supplier in our hometown). The layout was not as elaborate as those we might see at model train shows. It was about 4’x6’ and had trees, roads, houses, a school, a train station, some stores, and a side-track for freight trains. The layout was set up mainly in November and December. At that time, model trains were a winter sport for kids and dads. Summers were reserved for moms saying, “Go play outside.”

We played with the trains for several years, until we “grew up” and school activities and friends took over. Then the trains were packed away and the “train table” was stored against a wall in the basement.

I do not recall any of us deliberately wrecking the trains. We were “old enough” to respect them as something someone built and not mere “toys.” Small children delight in knocking things over, crashing things together, throwing things against walls, and generally trying to find out how much abuse things will take before breaking. The train set was for running the trains on time, delivering your cargo to the station, and getting your passengers home safely. It was never a reenactment of the “trolley problem,” where the object of the game is to run over things or people.

Toddlers don’t think about toys the same way as most “grownups.” My wife and I were fortunate that our own children learned to take care of their toys at an early age. Yet some kids don’t seem to care. I know of a few college kids who broke their iPods or smartphones only to shrug and say, “I’ll just get a new one.” I know of many more who took care of their things because they knew they couldn’t afford to replace them. Some might say this is about money. But perhaps it is more about parenting. In many ways it is about both.

My parents tried to teach us to treat people and especially other peoples’ things with respect. And of course, if one’s choice is between a person and a thing, the person takes precedence – every time. This lesson was driven home, literally, when I was rear-ended while driving the family car. After I apologized to dad, he said, “We can replace the car. We can’t replace you.”

With that lesson in mind, what if some people see other people as replaceable – or expendable? What if some people are mere toys to be played with, knocked about, crashed, thrown, and discarded? What if those in charge see some people as potential “acceptable losses?” What if some people have so much money they don’t care about others or their parents never taught them to respect the work that others do? What if, in the trolley problem of life, they would drive the train off a cliff if it meant that they could make more money?

What if rich and powerful men have already decided how the game will play out? Most of us are toys on a train table that they control. And to some of them, toys are meant to be broken. “Move fast and break things” is their motto. What if all their “pro-life” talk means that they are only “pro-life” until certain lives are no longer useful to them? Maybe human life is sacred only up to the point when people are sent to die for rich man’s causes. It’s been this way throughout most of human history.

I learned to take care of my toys, and later to apply that care to my family and my things. To be honest, I’m still working on taking care of others, but I’m trying. And I don’t get a high from treating others like throw-away toys, or wind-up soldiers to send into battle at my whim. Further, I try not to act like a toddler and destroy my toys in a tantrum. But at least with a toddler, they are only toys. When the rich and powerful throw tantrums, they can destroy people – human beings who can’t be replaced.