Holiday gift guides are popping up all over the Internet this month. What will be the hottest toy? What will you be rushing around the city to find in time for Christmas morning?

In past years, Birth Source has published gift guides of our own, but we’re stepping away from that this year. We do have a fantastic collection of toys and gifts that we hope you’ll stop by to check out, but this year we want to throw in our two cents about safe toys. In recent years, the problem of toxic toys has reached a fever pitch, and concerned parents are throwing up their hands in exasperation. How could a toy train be recalled for lead paint when it was always intended to be played with, and mouthed by, young children? Why is there BPA in our rubber duckies? How is this betrayal of our trust even allowed to occur in the first place?

The problem is systemic: largely self-regulated, toy manufacturers are not required to submit their products for government testing at any point. Many toy makers do consent to independent safety testing because retailers often won’t stock a product without certain certifications, but even a letter of approval from the renowned Canadian Toy Testing Council isn’t a guarantee. Toy testers can only find what they’re looking for, after all, and the standards checklists they use are outdated and reactionary at best.

Any one parent wouldn’t be alone in thinking that a toy on the shelf is there because it’s been proven safe, but that’s just not the case. The last five years have shown us that it’s not up to manufacturers to prove that their products are safe; rather, it’s up to us to prove that they’re not. Read: our children have to get lead poisoning first, and then we have to prove the lead came from a specific toy, and in quantities sufficient to lead to illness.

Relatively speaking, Canada’s toy industry is a small one, so most of the toys we find in stores are made in China on behalf of American companies. It’s worth noting, however, that the safety measures we have in place here aren’t much better. Health Canada enforces some pretty lax standards to begin with --- standards that include no measures at all for phthalates, that promote the use of flame retardants, and that have yet to ban the use of BPA in bottles and toys after finally declaring the ingredient to be toxic last October.

There is no universal master list of toy recalls, but Health Canada does maintain a recall database that is updated semi-regularly, and the US Consumer Products Safety Commission maintains a comprehensive (and daunting) list of toy recalls that appears to be updated weekly. Both lists are worth a look just for an overview of the how widespread our toxic toy problem is, let alone the motivation they’ll provide to do better for our kids.

So what’s a concerned parent to do? We don’t always have time to search the recall lists before buying, and why should we have to? We should be able to shop for our families with some measure of assurance that it is safe to do so.

Enter small, independent toy makers. Moms and dads working out of their homes and studios create products that stores like ours are proud to carry, and they have our trust the way bigger companies cannot. They make their toys in small batches, by hand, and without access to the problematic ingredients that their larger competitors do. A Ringley teether made of smooth Maple wood and organic cotton doesn’t need a letter of recommendation to prove that it’s free of lead paint; hand-crocheted Padraig slippers aren’t going to be recalled for phthalates. Small companies are so close to the source, so to speak, that the receptionist is often also the CEO, chief toy maker, and guinea pig. You can get them on the phone, or just drop by their studio, if you have a question.

Birth Source has always been strict about the kinds of toys we bring in our store, especially as our expansion has coincided with the realization that so many modern toys are not safe. We love natural materials, local artisans, and mompreneurs. We love finding unique, safe items that both kids and parents want to have in their homes. Our toys come almost exclusively from Tiny Footprint Toys, an Edmonton distributor of eco-friendly and child-safe playthings, though we’re happy to support a few other artisans whose products meet our criteria. In fact, Tiny Footprints will be joining us in-store with a hand-picked selection of their favorite toys over the next month. We would love for you to come by and see what's available, and we'd love to hear from you if there’s a great toy out there we should know about.

Happy holidays, fellow mamas. Let us help you make it as safe and natural as possible.

From the December 2011 issue of The Source
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