Julia Fox has started an interesting conversation surrounding the necessity of children’s toys.
The 32-year-old actress took to TikTok earlier this week to express her views on why we should be giving our children cleaning tools, instead of toys.
The video, which has already amassed over 2.5M views, has sparked a debate across her social media page.
According to Julia, the “concept of childhood” is outdated, and toys will not help children when it comes to their later lives as adults.
@juliafox ♬ original sound - Julia fox
“I think that the idea of childhood was invented as a way to just get parents to spend a lot of money on s*** that’s…not really teaching your kid anything,” Julia explained. “You just end up kind of raising a kid that’s helpless and doesn’t know what to do.”
Julia, who has a 19-month-old son named Valentino, went on to illustrate her style of parenting, and how her child has very little interest in playing with toys.
“I found that with my son, he doesn’t care about his toys, and he is actually more interested in what I’m doing,” the model added.
In her TikTok video, Julia offered her followers a recommendation for what they should buy their children, instead of toys. “So I suggest that everyone buy their kid a mini-mop and mini-broom and start teaching them those life skills really young, so when they enter the real world they don’t have to outsource for everything.”
Julia concluded her video by reiterating that it’s crucial that children should “know how to do things for themselves.”
“I think that’s really important,” she noted.
Julia’s controversial comments have sparked a fascinating debate within her TikTok comments.
Some of Julia’s followers agree wholeheartedly with her points. “Kids actually LIKE DOING THAT STUFF,” one follower commented. “Sometimes they want those toy vacuums and brooms on their own so they can do what their parents are doing.”
“My parents bought me a toy shopping cart when I was growing up and my favourite thing to do now is grocery shop”, added another viewer.
However, many of Julia’s followers have taken issue with her comments and do not understand her problem with children's toys.
“Like this concept but children are not mini adults!”, one follower wrote with frustration. “Childhood is an actual developmental stage in a human’s life!!!”
“I would argue that the concept of childhood is more about protecting people at the most vulnerable stage of their life than selling products?” another viewer questioned.
It’ll be interesting to see if children will get more broomsticks than teddy bears for Christmas this year!
