Theoretically, I disagree with the practice of throwing away kids’ toys while they’re away and unaware. I believe they should be part of the process; that learning how to hold things loosely is an important life lesson.
But then I was sitting on my daughter’s floor, ankle-deep in Hatchimals, Shopkins, My Little Ponies, LOL dolls, LEGO sets, and a million other teeny toys and I found myself considerably less committed to my ethics as I began to squirrel away a rather impressive collection of “treasures” I thought would best be stored in the trash.
As long as I could get them out of her room without her seeing.
This battle is new for me. My son was happy to reason through the regular toy clean-out; my daughter is much more attached to her things. And she has a lot of them. She loves tiny little things. So she has collections of miniscule figures with even smaller accessories. But she loves them each so much that she never loses a piece and knows exactly where everything is – even if it’s under a pile of junk in her room. And because everything’s so well-cared for, it’s not like I can convince her to downsize her collection based on arguments like “this is broken” or “this set is missing pieces.” Because they’re not.
Itty-bitty dog bones that have miraculously never been lost or sucked up by the vacuum cleaner. Sharpie for size.
So when we pare down the amount of toys in her room it’s always hard. It’s choosing this over that for no other reason than we don’t have room for everything. It’s choosing to keep one perfectly good and well-loved toy while getting rid of another that brings her just as much joy.
But therein lies the problem. She can’t really enjoy any of her treasures to the full because her floor is so cluttered with debris that she doesn’t really know what she has, let alone can she find the space to enjoy it.
So there I sat, with my wailing 6-year-old as she extolled the virtues of all her costume jewelry, birthday-party favors, and Happy Meal toys, trying to explain to her how she’s missing out on enjoying any of her toys because she has too many good things. And when her room’s too full, everything in it just becomes clutter and loses value.
Long story short, she vehemently disagreed with me.
But it made me think of how we as mothers do the same thing.
We fill our days with good things – work and parenting and self-care and volunteer opportunities and homeschooling and social hour and whatever else we add to the calendar. But then our days become so full that the joy gets sucked out of everything because instead of enjoying each activity to the full, we find it encroaching on the space we need to accomplish the next. So when we should be looking forward to a night out with our girlfriends or a yoga class at the gym or a fun craft project with our kids, we start to perceive them as inconveniences and just another thing to check off our to-do list for the sake of getting it done and over with.
Mom, we don’t have anyone tossing our treasures in the trash when we’re not looking. It’s us who has to make the hard choices about what goes and what stays. And many times, when we try to pare down the clutter in our lives we’re not getting rid of broken, useless, or extraneous things. We’re getting rid of good things.
But that’s okay, because it creates space for us to enjoy the things we once loved. It allows the things that were once good to become good again.
And it helps us learn that just because something is good doesn’t mean it adds value to our lives.
Now if someone could help my daughter understand the same about Hatchimals, I’d be forever grateful.
What good things do you need to let go of?
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Read more of Kristina’s contributions to allmomdoes here.
