Webkinz and other useless fads

July 8, 1:09 PMParenting Humor ExaminerAnnette van de Kamp

Now that I have kids, I get to see the process first-hand. Not too long ago, the evening newscasters couldn’t stop talking about Hannah Montana, who was apparently coming to town and causing much heartbreak. Tickets were difficult to come by; countless young girls were in danger of missing out. One mother related her daughter’s plight in front of the cameras: “My six-year-old just looooves Hannah Montana. She told me, ‘mom, if I can’t go to the concert, I’ll just die’, so, of course, I’m trying to get tickets.” She had been waiting in line for three hours; the look in her daughter’s eyes could only be described as animalistic. You could tell, she was going to the friggin' concert if it killed her. And in case her mother wouldn’t come through, she would make her pay.

My own daughter looked at that little display, and her judgment was as quick as it was harsh: “That’s stupid. Hannah Montana is stupid. That concert is stupid. Standing in line is stupid.’ I guess, at that point, ‘stupid’ was the baddest term in her vocabulary. Still, it’s nice to know that she doesn’t have to go along with whatever’s popular at the moment, but is equally comfortable at the sidelines.

Of course, congratulating yourself when your child shows some backbone and character is the worst thing any parent can do. My personal punishment came in the shape of a fuzzy little tiger Isabella received as a birthday present. “What a cute tiger,” I said.
“It’s not just a tiger,” Isabella told me, “it’s a Webkinz!”
“A what?”
“A Webkinz! You can go online and take care of them! I’ll name her Lulu! I wanted one of these so bad!”

The fact that I was unaware of A) what a Webkinz was, and B) that she wanted one, is entirely to my daughter’s credit. I couldn’t recall her ever asking for one, however, now that she had one, we were in for it. During the following months, we logged on and got busy, we added several more animals and spent hours feeding them, decorating their online homes, watering their gardens, and playing silly games.

Now it is almost a year later, and I haven’t seen my daughter play online for months. Even though it is summer, and she has free time in spades, the Webkinz craziness has run its course. Lulu the tiger is missing in action, the other ones have been banished to the very back of her dollhouse.

That’s what happens with fads: they run their course, and then they are forgotten. As long as she treats human beings better than her toys, I guess I can live with that.

For a trip down memory lane (remember your own fads?) click to see what was popular back then: the sixties,   the seventies,  the eighties, and the nineties