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Originally Posted by MorganGrayson
Ryan...you got some great advice here from parents. Don't fall into the typical parental mistake: thinking your child needs "things." (Children need food, shelter, medical care and educational supplies...the rest are "wants." One of the best gifts you can give your child is a grasp of the difference between a "want" and a "need.")
No kid *needs* two new toys a week. All you're going to do if you do that is create a greedy kid with a sense of entitlement. (Unless you're buying books. That's different.)
Kids want *time.* They want attention. Some of the best times I ever spent with my Dad was in the garage, sitting on the concrete, playing the "hand me the 5/8" wrench next, please" game while most of him was underneath the car. I hammered a lot of nails into scrap lumber. (My mother nearly killed him when his casual remark sent me into the house asking for the container of "elbow grease" to soften my very own baseball glove.)
Our own kids spent a lot of similiar time. When one finally bought her own car, she was equipped to deal with it after the hours she logged in the driveway with her Dad. We couldn't afford shit when they were growing up, but by hell, those kids can cope with life. They didn't get "things," but they got "time."
And to answer the original question, off and on for...geeze, looking back, it was probably only a couple of years. Seemed longer. That whole period is so lost in the mists of time....
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going back to the things topic of toys and such..
as a male in the mid-20s, i look back at my father, and the most precious childhood memories of him never ever were about when he gave me something. the one thing that sticks out in my mind wall all the sports teams he coached of mine growing up, or every weekend driving me around to games and always watching and truly wanting to be there and see me succeed. he did it for years and years, and sacrificed his weekends to spend with both my sister and I. its the things that cannot be bought that you remember.