After reading< This Article, I am glad that my son is old enough to understand things more clearly. I am glad I do not have any small children and that I do not have to deal with these toy companies.

I think it's horrible that they find satisfaction in the belief /knowledge that a parent will deprive themselves of their own needs/wants to make sure their children have theirs met. It appears they prey on this fact as well.

I also agree with the blogger that mentioned that time spent with your children is more precious then the toys they own. My parents weren't big on time spending; they were into material things only. They didn't have either as children and still to this day believe that things will make you happier then time spent with the ones you love.

The new gadget is always nice to have, but enjoying it with someone else always makes it better. The new gadget also quickly becomes old and is discarded for the next new thing. We as parents are here to stay for the long term. We should teach our children the valuable lesson of spending time with loved ones. Getting to know each other and going out and doing.

I used to hear my grandparents’ childhood stories, my parents’ childhood stories and have made some of my own. All have the now humorous spin that only time can provide. I watch my son who is in the age of media, Internet, cable, video games, I think, what stories will he have of his childhood.

That time he spent on line killing zombies with kids he's never seen? Or when he beat Guitar Hero on the expert level?

As a working parent, I am guilty of his spending to much time alone. He used to be with my mother who let the TV  be the babysitter while she took a nap, because her shift ended right when mine began. Guilty of when he was older leaving him be home alone from after school till I got home from working a long shift to make ends meet.

I do try on days off to get him out an about, we've taken short trips to places, done things, taken lots of pictures to help keep the memories preserved.

Yet he has none of those memories that only you and someone your age can have, be it a friend or a cousin. The Oh My GOD! Remember that time we used ...to take our bikes and make choppers out of them? And ride them until the front broke off? Or put rocks in our big wheels and ride up and down the street to make extra noise and tick off the "insert eccentric old neighbor here". Or how we used to play evil kaneivel? Or light our match boxes on fire, made a fort in the woods, or just snuck out late at night and wandered around town and no one knew because they were a sleep?

My dad's were better, putting blocks on car pedals so he could reach and driving down the street under 10 years old, shooting bb guns at the stop sign only to find they'd ricocheted into the neighbors’ window and hit him in the butt. His incredible older brother that had super human strength because he could pick my grandmom up when he was eight. He sadly drowned when he was younger and had become a legend that only his family knew about.

My grandfather having a horse he'd ride to the bar so the horse would bring him home. Then when later he had to sell it and it kept coming home and the new owner being all uptight about it. My grandmom and her chicken that would come in the house and lay double yokers in her breadbox, or saying she owned everything but a cow and telling my grandpop, if you get a cow I'm leaving.

My other set of grandparents meeting at school and always getting in trouble so they'd get locked in the coat room together...(and we wonder why they had 13 kids?) or how he had an arranged marriage and told them to marry her, he's marrying Helen. The stories the 13 kids will tell and how much trouble they could get into when left to their own devices.