Mifrah Abid’s eight-year-old son, Moosa, loves The Avengers. He’s obsessed with his Iron Man action figure and can talk at length about its many suits. Her twelve-year-old daughter, Tooba, meanwhile, went through a Roblox phase, playing a video game that’s all the rage with kids her age. But, early in the pandemic, when everyone was spending more time together at home, Abid went looking for something the whole family could enjoy. “[Millennial parents] don’t know about new toys,” said Abid, who lives in Kitchener, Ontario, and is host and producer of the interview podcast Across Her Table, which focuses on women with immigrant roots. “We were like, ‘Let’s go back to what we know.’” She thought back to her own childhood, to those old games the family played while crowded around the table—Monopoly, Pictionary, Uno. She decided to try to introduce them to her kids. Now Moosa and Tooba love them too.
It was a similar story for Robert Lee and his two daughters. Allie is six, Annie is four, and they both love all things Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig, and Baby Shark. But, for Christmas two years ago, their mother bought them a Lite-Brite and a Spirograph—simple art toys invented back in the ’60s that she remembered from her own early years. These weren’t the toys that Lee’s daughters typically saw in the YouTube videos they watched. They didn’t have flashy advertising campaigns or tie-in television shows, meaning the kids would never think to ask for them on their own. But Allie and Annie loved playing with them all the same.
