I chose as subjects of this portrait the twins of one of the single mother families I've been documenting - with many of their toys - to demonstrate just how many toys children are trained to consume from a young age.
One interesting thing to note about this family's consumption is that their mother does not have much income (as she is on disability), and struggles with trying to manage the challenge of raising Autistic twins on her own. Their grandmother helps out fairly often, but their step-grandfather insists on buying the twins a bunch of toys. Additionally, when various organizations have tried to help her over the years, they've often done so by giving them toys at Christmas.
Their mother has really needed other types of help - such as with navigating the special needs aspect of the public school system, and now with homeschooling her boys - but instead she has the additional challenge of trying to get rid of the toys. An interesting symptom of the twins' autism is that they lack imagination, so toys such as blocks and legos are particularly untouched in the house, yet, they keep track of the toys they have, even the unused ones, so when she tries to pass the toys onto other children who may want or need them more, the boys become unconsolable. As such, she's kept all of these toys until she can figure out how to sneak them out of the house.
