Tapas for toddlers?
This Fisher-Price charcuterie-board play set has a lot of tongues wagging, with one viral tweet asking “what kind of fancy a— child” has such refined taste.
Among the Mattel MAT, +1.75% brand’s toys available for the holidays this year is the $19.99 “Snacks for Two” set. The 15-piece spread recommended for kids ages 3 and up includes two faux marble plates, a wood-accented cutting board and a fake knife to “slice” the soft salami, as well as play cheese, red grapes and crackers to offer guests. And if you want to get your kiddos to acquire a taste for puns early on, as well, the two fabric napkins are printed with “You’re Grape” and “Let It Brie.”
Mattel Even Fisher-Price’s own product description calls it “fancy.” What’s more, the promotional image shows a little boy in a bow tie and a girl wearing a beret.
“Little foodies will love indulging in fancy snacking fun,” the description reads. “This pretend charcuterie set is loaded with delicious hands-on play, including a soft salami kids can ‘slice,’ pull-apart grapes (perfect for sharing!), ‘crackers’ for stacking, stylish plates and real fabric napkins.”
What’s more, related Fisher-Price play sets include a Farm-to-Market stand with toy kale, as well as an On-The-Go Wallet with play credit cards, which the product description suggests could be used for “buying brunch,” as well as a pretend smartphone (for “making urgent calls”) and a plastic smartwatch (for “tracking their steps”).
Now, a big part of imaginative play involves kids mimicking the grown-up activities of their moms and dads. But some folks found all of this cheese set hard to swallow, with many bemused shoppers posting their disbelief on Twitter TWTR, +0.14% that it was too “fancy” or “bougie” — as in bourgeois — for young kids.
Then again, other parents and customers were eating it up, or lamenting that such a tasteful play set didn’t exist when they were kids. “Um, it’s adorable,” wrote one user.
Mattel declined to address the criticism directly, telling MarketWatch in an emailed statement: “Fisher-Price incorporates fun in everything we do and the Snacks for Two set is no exception. Kids love to role-play and this set brings humor and fun into a trendy snack.”
This kid-friendly charcuterie board is just the most recent viral example of kids’ (or their parents’) more discerning tastes today.
“Mr. Boddington’s Studio: NYC ABCs” picture book ($9.99) teaches little ones the alphabet with hip examples. “B” is for “Bergdorf Goodman Christmas window,” reads one entry. Or, “N” is for “New York Times with coffee stains,” says another. “P,” of course, stands for “Pilates.”
Neiman Marcus’s 2019 Christmas Book features glittery $78 box clutches for girls (because they need a blinged-out purse to tote their Chapstick).
Uncommon Goods offers multilingual wooden building blocks ($40) with characters printed in Spanish and Mandarin, or there’s also American Sign Language blocks, to cultivate a more worldly child.
There’s also plenty of infant cellphone toys out there, including the Skip Hop Explore & More Selfie Baby Cellphone Toy ($10), VTech’s VTKLY, +0.12% Touch and Swipe Baby Phone ($12.49) or LeapFrog’s Chat and Count Emoji Phone ($14.99).
Barbie’s current Malibu House ($99.99) features a pop-up smoothie bar in the kitchen, as well as a living-room wall that flips to transform the space into an entertainment center. Her latest Dreamhouse ($199.99) boasts a flat-screen TV set-up into which you can plug a smartphone to play videos, as well as a working elevator (Barbie and friends can’t be expected to run up and down the stairs of a three-story house in heels, after all).
And of course, Hasbro’s HAS, +0.85% iconic Monopoly game ($29.99) has scrapped the cash bank for a voice-controlled, smart assistant that transfers money into each player’s account.
Many of these are available at retailers including Amazon AMZN, -0.07% , Walmart WMT, -0.14% and Target TGT, -0.45% .
But the most extra example of all might be this 10-year-old California girl’s Christmas list that went viral last month. It included more than $2,000 in Apple AAPL, +1.01% products, such as the new iPhone 11, Air Pods and the latest MacBook Air. She also asked for Gucci PPRUY, +0.56% sliders, a Chanel purse, pink Pumas, a live bunny rabbit — and $4,000 in cash.
“My 10-year-old daughter must be out of her mind with this Christmas list,” her dad tweeted.
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