The surprising reason millennial parents are miserable

Insider

Senior correspondent Katie Notopoulos breaks down why toy prices are at an all-time low, and how cheaper toys are making millennial parents so miserable.

Transcript

00:00 I'm going to show you one chart that reveals why millennial parents are drowning in toys.

00:06 My name is Katie Anatopoulos. I'm a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

00:10 The red line shows overall inflation across the entire U.S. economy.

00:15 And you can sort of see that starting in 1993, it has gone up over 100%.

00:20 One thing that costs a lot more than average is the cost of daycare and preschool.

00:26 That is just a cost that has gone way, way up.

00:29 And then you can see the blue line at the bottom.

00:32 Over the course of 30 years, it has gone down -76%.

00:37 So that's deflation. That is for the category toys.

00:40 In the mid-90s, in like 1994, you could get a sort of basic Barbie for about $9.99.

00:50 These are two of my Barbies from the late 80s, early 90s.

00:54 You can tell their hair is kind of matted. They lost their shoes, but you know, it happens.

00:58 They were probably about $10 each.

01:01 You can get a Barbie now for as cheap as $7.99 for like a sort of very basic model Barbie doll.

01:10 It is surprising when you think of how the last 30 years has gone that that price has stayed the same.

01:17 There's not that many things that were $10 in 1994 and are still $10.

01:25 It was like a big deal to get a remote-control car in the 80s or 90s.

01:29 And now, like, they sell remote-control cars for like $10 at CVS.

01:33 So much of toys are now bought on like deep discounting at Amazon or big box stores.

01:40 And it used to be that you would go to like a toy store where there might be less discounting.

01:45 You can end up having a lot more of them without actually spending all that much money.

01:51 And it just seems like the living room is vomiting up plastic with all these toys everywhere.

01:57 And I know that I'm not alone. I know that so many other parents of young kids are also, like,

02:02 it is a constant battle to declutter the amount of toys that they're getting.

02:08 Millennial parents are like begging their grandparents, like,

02:12 "Please stop buying us toys because we are overrun in our homes with this stuff."

02:18 That's what you see on a lot of birthday party invitations these days, like no gifts,

02:23 because people just don't want more stuff in their house.

02:26 I think that a lot of millennial parents, they just don't want as much plastic in their lives,

02:30 partly because they know that, like, this is a thing that's going to stick around on planet Earth for a thousand years.

02:36 It's not good for the planet.

02:38 And there are lots of wooden toys. Not only are they actually more expensive,

02:42 but I think they're seeing this a little bit more virtuous, too.

02:45 Even though, like, secretly I think everyone knows that kids really love the noisy plastic light-up stuff

02:50 that looks ugly and horrible.

02:53 [BIRDS CHIRPING]

02:56 [WATER SPLASHING]

02:59 (bottles clinking)

03:02 (glass shattering)

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