eeBoo Celebrates Twenty Years of Fun, Family and Friends

eeBoo is a woman owned, innovative toy company from NYC celebrating its 20th anniversary of making uniquely beautiful toys and intelligent gifts for children. Twenty years ago eeBoo’s founder Mia Galison was unwilling to choose between work and family; integrating the two, she forged an original path for herself, her husband and three children.

When Mia Galison started eeBoo, she did not know what a gift it would be to be able to build a business and a family at the same time. She wanted to create a new paradigm for what it meant to be a working mother. Mia refused to embrace the compromise of work versus family — she was determined to have it all in one place, one self-perpetuating organism. So she made her office in the basement of her apartment house where she could be close to the kids and they could experience it, understand it and help out. Mia never worried about what the business looked like to other people. She never tried to conceal that there were kids and dogs running and barking in the background or stop her mother from walking into the office during a meeting. She embraced this early chaotic mix as her brand, and was proud of it.

Mia and her husband put in long hours and depended on the help of neighbors, friends, families, and babysitters, and they never separated their life from work. Raising three children in the same realm as running a home-based business clarified their values as parents. They wanted to encourage creative thinking, open-ended play, and meaningful communication in the products developed. Telling stories with their children, finding interesting objects in nature, and working on crafty projects together informed and inspired what is now the eeBoo line.

The children have recently left for college, Mia has white hair, and eeBoo is no longer an anomaly in the toy industry. Happily, changing tastes, evolving values and the internet have enabled new and bigger waves of unconventional businesses to enter the market — many run by women with small children. Looking back on the last twenty years, Mia is proud of the children they have raised and the meaningful assortment of products made, and is especially glad that the offerings embody their values as a family and as parents.

In the early nineteenth century, kindergarten pioneer Freidrich Froebel created a sequence of “gifts” to cultivate mental and physical growth at critical stages of a child’s development. in the same spirit, eeBoo strives to offer gifts that stimulate a child’s growth and meet critical developmental needs. In an increasingly digital world, eeBoo gives children and their parents hands-on play activities to enjoy together that foster essential skills at increasing levels of sophistication.

eeBoo’s newest product launch is a set of Kevin Hawkes’ Back to School Create a Story Cards. This product embodies many of the values that guide us. It is a beautifully designed, sensitively illustrated, inexpensive, durable and safe. Create a Story Cards encourage open ended narrative play which cultivates valuable pre-literacy skills. A great intergenerational activity, they embolden imagination and facilitate conversation about the excitement and anxiety associated with new experiences, social relationships, expectations and preparation for an important milestone: the first day of school.

For more information, visit www.eeboo.com