Twitter Thinks This Fisher-Price My Home Office Toy Is ‘Bleak.’ Working Parents Disagree

Our kids are getting a whole lot of time with us these days–and, of course, Fisher-Price had to make a home office toy so our little ones can feel just like mom and dad. But not everyone was so pleased with the idea.

People took to Twitter with photos of the set, mocking it and calling it “bleak.” Drew Harwell, a tech reporter for the Washington Post posted photos of the plastic headset, phone, laptop and to-go coffee cup included.

In the thread, Drew linked to an article he wrote on how companies are encouraging remote work to be more “fun”–or, in his words, “more demanding, time-consuming, and surveilled.” So, yeah, we get where he’s coming from.

Melody Joy Kramer, a writer, communications professional and a mom, also shared her thoughts on the toy set, captioning the photo: “This is real. I guess we’re all living in hell now.”

But the working parents of Twitter had a different take. While, yes, it might feel like we’re training our children to be corporate drones… Isn’t this remote working world the very one we should be preparing them for?

Our children watch us and copy what we do, whether we like it or not. If they’re learning from us how to work from home, multitask, join Zoom meetings and not lose our sanity, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. And, hey, why not teach kids that work can be–gasp–enjoyable? Several working parents made this point in response.

And she’s right! Not only is this set fun–it’s a great productivity hack for parents of toddlers. Other parents made some decent points too–particularly that a toy like this is preferable to the cooking, cleaning and princess toys that are almost exclusively marketed towards girls.

Some parents had some hilarious takes on how to make the toy more realistic:

In conclusion: What’s wrong with a toy that lets kids emulate their working parents?

If you think it just might be the perfect distraction for your little one, you can purchase it here.