i always hated when my toys were made to look "kid like".

if you give me a toy tool box, there better be a toy hammer that looks like a real hammer that adults use. it better not be multicolored with a big smiley face on them. i'm pretending to be a big strong adult doing a cool job. do you really think i want to show up to the pretend worksite looking like some sort of baby?!

i'm pretty sure all my friends also wanted the "real" thing, so i have to assume that the cute whimsical angle is just to help sell it to adults.

Growing up in Los Alamos, we didn't have a toy shop. There was one when I was very young, but it had closed by the time I was old enough to remember it.

We did have an incredible hardware store, however. Pocket hammers, mini-maglites (in any color you like), little brass screwdrivers that could come apart into 10-15 different (tiny) tools, garden sprinklers, and more, were the bread and butter of birthday parties and any other gifting event.

Sure, your parents could drive you to Española for Wal Mart, or to Santa Fe for a Toys Я Us or Target, so we weren't completely missing out on things like super soakers or lego. But nothing could really beat Metzgers Hardware.

Daycare and similar also typically had a workbench somewhere with a hammer, some nails, boards, and other bits and bobs for kids to play with. Sure, sometimes you'd bop your finger, but you learned not to do that

It's because if some Karen sees your kid with a real looking hammer anywhere near actual work, (s)he's gonna rat your ass out to CPS faster than you can snap your fingers.

Similarly for toy guns. The weird look ain't for the kids, it's so some passerby doesn't see the "gun" and call the cops (no matter there is no regulation in most states from making a real gun to look like a toy gun so it's a totally bogus presumption).

I grew up in a construction family. I didn't have this problem. I was given a real hammer and real nails and scrap wood to nail together. It was a shite hammer but real. It was probably only a light 8oz hammer, but I was at the real worksite with my pretend project. I'm sure some OSHA rules were broken, but it was weekends only and most of the crew was off, but it was real enough to kid me then.

But yeah, if someone gave me a red and blue smiley face toy tool, I'd be like WTF is this? Then again, my dad would have said the same thing without the cutesy internet acronyms.