To Buy Or Not To Buy Toys From China

Almost a year ago, a huge toy recall from several large manufacturers made a lot of us, parents, to suddenly pay a lot more attention than usual to the quality of toys that we buy for our children. The fact that the toys were made in China, perhaps, made the whole issue look even more alarming. After all, China is a developing country, plagued with corruption, so it was kind of easy to conclude that the country didn’t have the same, high safety standards that we want here in America.

If you didn’t know anything about toys, but you know that China is the world’s new “factory”, and somebody asked you to imagine what kinds of toys were made in China, most likely you would have thought that they were cheap toys, made of plastic, with annoying noises and lights--which is what you usually find in any big city's Chinatown. Perhaps for that reason plus the safety concern, wood and cloth toys --many of which look hand (and home) made--had such huge sales growth last year. Many families didn't mind paying a few bucks more for the sake of their little loved ones. Other families perhaps discovered a charm in toys that are less mainstream.

The irony about the China scare is that virtually all toys, whereas made of wood, plastic, metal, cardboard, fabric or wool are, in fact, made in China. Most of the “European toys”, praised for their design and educational value are also made in China. The reason? Because, to this day, no other country beats China’s quality to price ratio. None.

This is not at all to say that we, parents, shouldn’t worry about the quality of toys our children play with. Toys are an extremely important outlet for children to discover themselves and the world around them.

What should drive us to buy some toys and not others, however, is the toy’s quality, design, materials, colors, textures and, most importantly, their educational value, regardless of where they are made. There are many brands, such as Brio, PlanToys, Playmobil, Papo, Le Toy Van, that pride themselves on the high quality standards that they set for their products and make sure that those standards are applied regardless of where they are made. Many of these brands do manufacture their toys in China, under their own quality control, in order to bring parents the highest possible quality, at the best possible price.