When my kid was born, she quickly amassed an impressive collection of the most adorable little toys. An incredibly soft, stuffed mouse, a set of colorful, plastic stacking rings, TWO silicone avocado teethers, Sophie the giraffe, and many others. “How lucky we are!” we thought to ourselves, as the people in our lives so generously gifted our baby with such pleasures. This went on for a few months, and we added to the collection ourselves. But at some point (I cannot pinpoint exactly when), it became apparent that children’s toys begin as lovely, benign little trinkets and then suddenly become the most irritating torture devices you’ve ever endured. If you are a parent, you may slowly close your eyes, sigh, and lower your chin toward the ground. You get it.
If you are not a parent, I have made a little chart proving my theory. I’ve chosen two toys from each age group to include in the dataset and listed them below with their assigned Annoyance Quotient (AQ). The average of both toys represents that age bracket in the graph. Feel bad for me; several of these reside in my home.
Ages 0 – 6 months:
Ages 6 – 12 months:
Ages 1 – 2 years:
Ages 2 – 3 years:
- Chalk = 6
- Paint (washable!) = 7
Ages 3 – 4 years:
Ages 4 – 5 years:
- Instruments = 10
- Slime = 6
Ages 5 – 7 years:
- Music-playing microphone = 10
- Ant farm = 7
Ages 7 – 10: