Hi everyone,
I don’t have kids myself (but hope I do one day). But I was wondering how having kids affected your hobby of collecting.
It would be nice to hear some stories of people who share the hobby with their kids. Or maybe some people have different experiences, like children that don’t get why daddy collects childrens cardboard 
Anyway, would be nice to hear your stories!
My kid once vomited on a binder page and it seeped into every sleeve.
I’ve come to appreciate 5ban graphics more as a father to a 6 year old son who absolutely loves those cards
Also the enjoyment of opening sealed product with a kid is just so much more fun when you get a “hit” - the enthusiasm is on another level.
As I collect with him now as well, we have gravitated more towards set collecting and binders as to my son at least it’s baffling why I would take a card and put it inside a piece if plastic so he cannot get to the actual card itself I’ve come to appreciate raw cards more and just let him rip through packs and have that enjoyment and not only seeing wasted potential if a cards gets scratched or bent.
My girls are just getting into it(4,6)
It’s funny to see them interact/trade, I’ve also learned that Holos don’t really matter and most of the time, the favorite card is a “cute” common.
My kids also think that every card is worth lots of money lol. Just because I’ve told them they can’t play with daddy’s cards because of that lol.
I have to hide mine. Or my no rarity Charizards would have yogurt on them and creases in about 3 minutes.
I have three kids and they’re all in love with pokemon right now. Makes me a proud dad hahaha.
They love looking through binders. My 3 yr old boy’s favorite pokemon is charizard. He screams, yells, and makes fire breathing noises everytime he sees carddass charizard or base set charizard. I feel the same way but I do those things internally.
My daughter loves eevee and pikachu of course.
Slabs are good because they can rummage through them without bending/damaging the cards.
We have ripped some packs, they’re not super interested in that yet though.
I let my 6 month old hold some slabs almost every day. He actually holds them carefully with both hands and enjoys looking at them for quite some time before putting them in his mouth to ensure they are watertight. 
Probably will stop doing so when he discovers the beauty of crayons, but for the time being I like to keep him engaged in whatever daddy is doing.
He also has a huge ‘blackie’ plush from the Pokemon Center watching over his dreams, so hopefully I’ll be able to make Pokemon a shared interest for years to come.
I put my slabs in sleeves just incase they feel artsy haha
While we’ve bought very few packs since last year, we would go buy packs at Target for him the past 4 or 5 years. It’s fascinating since he started out using a binder, then a small binder he would take into school, then he started using toploaders I bought him and storing in boxes, and I started buying him slabs of modern cards he wanted as well as loose vintage cards before the price spike of 2020. LOTS of trading for cards and Pokemon he liked with his school mates.
What I find so interesting is he’s very specific about which cards he wants to keep in toploaders/binders and which he wants slabbed. He rarely wants “scratchies” slabbed since he likes taking them out and touching them, and there are other cards he very much prefers slabbed. He’s been indoctrinated in the principles of preservation, but it’s up to him how he chooses to manage that. Whenever I’ve made a submission to PSA, I’ve asked him which of his cards he’d like graded and we inspect the cards together and write down our estimates.
I love seeing how he keeps them in his room, sometimes he has slabs or toploaders under a chair or his bed so he can see them when he wants, other times he’ll put them on his dresser. He moves them around frequently. I love seeing how his mind works around his cards, and how his thinking and tastes evolve. I really like how he definitely has his favorite Pokemon, and his preferences have absolutely NOTHING to do with market prices. I love this part of collecting with him since it’s really just a pure experience in this respect. It’s been great for me in my collecting experience for sure. ALTHOUGH I did sell a card lot on ebay for him that we got graded, once he realized what he could get for them. Also fascinating for me in how he decided which cards to sell and which not to sell. His “hold” cards could probably sell for thousands and he would still choose to hold them, where other cards $50 was enough to let them go! SO fun.
@gengaranimal sounds like a very smart kid.
My five yr old step daughter loves her cards. Its refreshing not hearing about charizard all the time as her favourite cards are generally cute commons. Its going to be interesting when her friend group start trading at school as she has a collection that is frankly huge. ( its my bulk haha) wish i could be there to see the other kids eyes.
Great thread! Awesome responses so far.
I’ve 3 Kids. (They are 8, 5 and 4)
We watch old and New Pokemon animes together. I did give some of my childhood cards for them aswell. I buy some boosters for them on birthdays/ Christmas and somethimes just randomly. They all have their own binders where we add ALL the cards they pull. Some of the better pulls I have get graded for them. (like rainbows EX’s etc) I’ve bought a few bulk base 1st psa9 bulk non holos for them aswell( my 8 years old daughter absolutely loves her Ponyta) . Me and my kids do have a great time together looking our cards, it is awesome how they can appreciate almost any card they have on their binders 
and for me it is great to have family members who appreciate my cards, my wife can’t understand them at all, or atleast why I’m collecting them 
Very kind of you–I wish I was as definitive in my likes/dislikes and decision making as he is. There’s something very encouraging and cool about having a kid whose tastes and decisions are their own and not subject to my tastes or choices I would make. It will probably be challenging with your 5 year old if she makes trades that make you wince–at least it was for me! But, there were some good lessons he learned when he did some particularly painful trades with an older kid who traded some “really rare!” garbage cards for my son’s Charizards. But they have to go through it and it gave me an excuse to get him back in the Charizard game that Christmas. Many parenting ambiguities, too–ie. to let or not let your kid trade away cards gifted to them from other relatives…!
Kids lower the amount of time and money you can designate to the hobby. Well worth it though. Having my family’s financial future in mind has made me sell off a bit more and be more conservative than if I didn’t have that to consider, but overall I’ve done very well and can’t complain. I’ve sold a lot that has gone up afterwards but I did sell a lot near peak late last year and almost every big sale I made I picked up other (usually better returning) Pokemon items as well.
At ~2.5 and 0.5 my youngest is too young but my older one loves the show, has a bunch of stuffed animals that we battle with, and has a small folded in half stack of his own cards. He probably can name ~50 Pokemon already. Disproportionately gen 1 but he actually makes me learn some of the newer ones whenever they have pins, promos, or jumbos that he sees when I am unpacking new product. He greatly increases my enjoyment of the franchise and I look forward to maybe some day finally learning to play the TCG if he has interest in that himself. Could be motivation for me to actually play through the new games if he gets into them too. I tried seeing if he could figure out N64 snap the other day and his hands aren’t able to function the Z button and joystick at the same time on the N64. Maybe on the switch he can figure out the new one a bit better. He still enjoyed seeing all the Pokemon in the various maps.
Eagerly awaiting the time when I can enjoy something like this with kids in the family. Loving these posts! Thanks for sharing.
I was honestly expecting this thread to have a lot more comments like Admirals but it turned out to be very wholesome! I imagine having a child that likes Pokemon is a really easy way to keep yourself engaged in the hobby and I’m glad they’re enjoying it.
Great to hear those stories, guys! It sounds really nice to share the hobby with your kid (besides the vomit in your binder:)). Especially cool to see them enjoy it in their own way. It’s intriguing to see that we can learn a lot from the way children look at the world, and in this case the hobby.
Legitimately the funniest thing I have ever read on this site lmao
My daughter was named after one of my favourite Pokémon, my partner wouldn’t let me have the same spelling though. I’m looking forward to giving Evie a thunderstone for her 18th birthday
I joined the hobby because of the birth of my son back in 2017. Searched YouTube for kid/baby friendly videos and stumbled upon Hardcorllectr. We’d always go to Target to buy baby supplies and I would buy a pack here and there. Now, I strictly collect vintage, but over the years, anytime I find products on the shelves, I’d buy extras to put in a box that I’ve created for my son who can one day either open it, sell it or include it with his collection. He’s also the only reason why I’ll buy modern packs to just rip randomly. As he gets older, I hope to one day introduce him to the “serious” side of collecting.