Do you ever get so fed up with all the toys lying around? This is the inside story of my drastic decision to take my kids’ toys away.
As some of you already know, I’ve been on a mission this year to simplify my family’s life and rid ourselves of excess. Over the course of the past nine months I have probably given away about 75 percent of my girls’ toys, keeping only the items that I felt encouraged their imagination and that they actually played with. I thought I was doing pretty good.
Even so, there were warning signs that my kids still had too much stuff. In June, we took a field trip to Reptile World in Orlando. Afterwards we decided it would be fun to take the girls to dinner at a dinosaur-themed restaurant called T-Rex in Downtown Disney. While we were waiting to be seated my oldest daughter Maggie spotted the Build-a-Dino Workshop in the gift shop and although we immediately said “no way,” from that moment on she could think of nothing else.
All through our delicious dinner, surrounded by dramatic (fake) meteor showers and animatronic dinosaurs, she fixated on the one thing she couldn’t have rather than the cool sights we were actually experiencing.
On the three hour drive home, Husband and I–seriously concerned by our daughter’s inability to enjoy the moment–made a point to talk about all the neat stuff we had seen, what our favorite reptiles were, and how funny Trouble had been holding the snake. By the time we made it home the Build-a-Dino had been forgotten. At least by her. But we were worried.
In the weeks that followed, Chuck and I talked a lot about how we were going to handle this lack of contentment we were noticing. Then one morning near the end of July, after telling my kids to clean their room for the umpteenth time, I made the somewhat impulsive–albeit pre-warned–decision to take away ALL their stuff.
Just 2 days earlier I had spent half the day cleaning their room & re-organizing their toys and closet, which is something I do fairly regularly. I wasn’t asking them to clean some giant out-of-control mess, just to pick up a few items off the floor and put them away in the very clearly labeled baskets. Every time I came back to check on them, they had not only NOT picked up, they had made an even bigger mess.
I finally gave up and took it all away. I wasn’t angry, just fed up. I calmly began packing up not just a toy or two, but every single thing. All their dress-up clothes, baby dolls, Polly Pockets, & stuffed animals, all their Barbies, building blocks, and toy trains, right down to the the furniture from their dollhouse and play food from their kitchen. I even took the pretty Pottery Barn Kids comforter from their bed. The girls watched me in stunned silence for a few minutes and then, when the shock wore off, they helped. And just like that, their room was clear.
I had no idea what a dramatic difference this one semi-impulsive decision would make in all our lives. I first started noticing a real change about 4 weeks later when we took a family trip to Key West.
In contrast to our last outing and for the first time ever, neither girl asked us to buy a single thing the entire weekend. Not a toy, not a cheesy souvenir, not a light-up necklace from a passing street vendor. Nothing. We passed hundreds of shops and they loved looking in the window, but they were content just to be. What was most amazing to me was that we didn’t talk to them about it ahead of time. Not once did we have to tell them not to ask, or explain that being together was what mattered.
Had I not experienced it with my own eyes, I would’ve never believed that an addiction to stuff could be broken that quickly. The truth is that when I took all their stuff away, I was terrified at what would happen. I worried that I was scarring them for life, depriving them of some essential developmental need, taking away their ability to self-entertain.
In reality, the opposite has happened. Instead of being bored, they seem to have no shortage of things to do. Their attention span is much longer and they are able to mindfully focus on their task at hand. They color or read for hours at a time and happily spend the entire afternoon playing hide & seek or pretend.
They are far more content, able to appreciate the blessings that they do have, and able to truly enjoy the moment they are in without always having to move on to the next thing. They are more creative and patient, more willing to share, far more empathetic towards the plight of others, and, with little to fight over, they hardly fight at all.
When I do take down a toy for them to play with (no, I didn’t throw everything away), such as their Lego blocks or dress-up clothes or or their kitchen food & dishes, that one thing will entertain them for the entire day. (The rest has more or less been forgotten and will soon make it’s way from the attic to the Goodwill pile.)
What I love even more is that they are able to recognize excess on their own. Aside from a favorite stuffed animal and the comforter on their bed, (which they both earned back), neither of them actually want their toys back on a permanent basis. They like not being overwhelmed by stuff and not having to spend so much time cleaning their room. In fact, later that very same day, as we drove to gymnastics class, Maggie said it’s okay that we don’t have any more toys Mommy. We can just read and use our imaginations. And now we won’t have to clean up every day. She understood before I did that more stuff doesn’t make us happier.
When I first became a mom I was so happy to have a chance to start over, to undo through my children all the wrong that was done to me, to give them everything I felt I had missed out on. I wanted our lives to be perfect, and my vision of perfection included a perfectly decorated bedroom filled with beautiful things, a life where they would want for nothing.
I equated giving them stuff with making them happy, a message that our consumer driven culture hammers into our psyches from the time we our born. Oh, what a lie!
I started this blog because I am a shopaholic, and there are so many times where I buy things when I am bored or unhappy, just to fill the void. My husband laughs at me (and sometimes throws up his hand in frustration) because although I talk a good game about wanting to downsize and get rid of stuff, in reality there are still many times where I just can’t help myself from buying more.
I justify it, telling myself it was on sale or a really good deal, or something we really needed, or that I deserve it because I work so hard. In reality it is just another thing I am trying to buy to solve a problem that runs much deeper.
Stuff isn’t evil in and of itself, but in a world where we are constantly told that what we have isn’t quite good enough, the love of things can so very easily consume us. It is the pursuit of it all–more toys, cuter clothes, a prettier house, a nicer car, a bigger computer, a fancier phone–that makes us forget all the things that actually matter.
It wasn’t until after observing first hand the real and immediate changes in my children after taking their toys away that I truly began to understand. And now instead of me teaching them, they have taught me the lesson I wish I would’ve have learned a long time ago.
For our family, there’s no turning back.
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I just wanted to say THANK YOU for sharing your experience!
I've been inspired and will be having a talk with my daughters tomorrow and we'll be taking many of their "thingz" to the 2nd hand shoppes...bring on more space!
Thanks for sharing! I love this.
This article has saved me! :) I am 12 years old, (almost 13), and am trying to get rid of my things. My family is planning on moving in a year, so about when I start high school, and we want to bring the least amount of things possible. I am very protective of my things because I get most from very close family friends. But this article has made me realize that I don't need to keep those objects if I never use them. They are mine now and will they really say "Oh do you have that such and such I gave you 4 years ago?". Probably not. Thank you so much for bringing me into the clutter free light :D
Sincerely,
Soon to be clutter free Clara
:)
Kudos! More parents need to do this.
I absolutely can't wait to do this! We are moving in a couple of weeks and it will be the perfect opportunity to start fresh! Thanks for sharing this!
I actually agree with your decision 100%. My parents never cleaned my room. They told me once, maybe twice and if I had to be told a third time--then my Mom cleaned my room and I lost everything that wasn't put away.If I elft my things down stairs, there was no warning, I lost it when my Dad had to pick it up. I didn't have an over assortment of toys growing up so this was a big deal to me.
hats off to you, from one overindulgent momma to a former one. I adore you and your tenacity. I wish I lived local to you as we would hit it off and could have coffee together. this is a fabulous idea. I've cleared the room on countless occasions. but the crap always finds it's way back in. I too, have overindulged my daughter in an attempt to give her everything I felt I never had as a child, tangibly or not. thank you for the inspiration and thoughts. I appreciate you and your vulnerability for putting it out there.
When my daughter was little I lost it one afternoon while cleaning her room. It was pretty much the same scenario as you describe in your post. Everything was bagged up and went out to the garage and while there were tears at first she soon seemed to get over it. We went a month before I pulled some things out for her, but she never seemed to miss them. She was content to play imaginatively indoors and outside, colour or read and never once after the first day asked again. I was the one who returned them to her.
I was in the wrong for pulling the toys out in anger, but it showed me that they don't need as much as we give them. Remember as babies when they were more fascinated with the box / paper than the gift itself?
I just came across this article and remebered your post, so thought I'd share: http://www.naturallifemagazine.com/1112/the_boy_with_no_toys.htm
Wow!! Thank you for this! I have so many, many times wanted to do something like this, but have felt guilty at the thought of it- like I would be depriving my kids, or something! I'm so tired of this 'stuffitis' disease- its overwhelming & takes away from the quality time we could be spending together! Your article is just the inspiration I needed to get over my hurdle of feeling like I would be depriving my kids! Thank you! Thank you! Many blessings!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I couldn't agree with you more on this topic. I don't know you personally. However, I believe it's a beautiful blessing to see very clearly what positive changes you made in your family life. Keep going mom! We need more families to recognize. I believe in doing or trying new changes to better my family in a healthy and positve ways. Kudos! Love the post. Thank you for sharing!