Magazine

A dad looking exhausted in a brightly lit toy store aisle.

A Letter to Myself: What I Wish I Knew Before Entering the Toy Store

Dear Tom from exactly six months ago, You're currently standing in the middle of aisle four of a massive, warehouse-style toy store just off the M25, sweating profusely into your supposedly breathable cotton t-shirt while the twins double-team a meltdown...

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Marcus's 11-month-old baby reaching for a wooden block on the living room floor.

Why I Stopped Trusting the Internet About Early Development Toys

When my son was about four days old, my mother-in-law bought us a plastic command center that flashed strobe lights and yelled the alphabet in a robotic British accent. "He needs cognitive stimulation," she told me with absolute certainty. The...

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Mother adjusting the footboard on a colorful baby activity center in a living room

What Nobody Tells You About That Baby Activity Center

I walked into my mother-in-law's house last Thanksgiving and caught her trying to wedge my four-month-old into a plastic rolling walker that looked like a relic from 1996. I pulled him out of that dusty death trap so fast I...

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