It is a truth universally acknowledged that every parent has experienced the pain of stepping on a Lego. Some day, hundreds of thousands of years from now, archaeologists will discover our perfectly preserved bodies and wonder what those evenly spaced circular dents on the soles of our feet are.
The first time I had a serious run-in with one of my kids’ toys was when my younger son James was two. I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and I walked smack-bang into a toy truck. If the truck had been made of plastic it wouldn’t have been so bad, but it was made of metal.
My foot connected with a sharp corner of the truck and I got a fair-sized gash. Because this happened during a rare moment in which both kids were asleep at the same time, I couldn’t howl in pain and hop around on one leg. I had to just stand there and bleed quietly.
Five years later, I still have a scar on my right foot. And James still has the offending truck. In fact, both of my boys still have just about every toy they have ever owned since the day they were born. My attempts to get rid of some of them have not gone well.
The first time I tried to clear out old toys, I enlisted the help of the boys. I had this charmingly naive idea that if I involved the kids in deciding what to keep and what to throw out, I would have their buy-in, and consequently, their cooperation. The theory was good, and at the beginning of the exercise, things looked promising. We emptied out toy boxes and started separating things into two piles: the Keep pile and the Throw Away pile. The boys seemed to be quite enthusiastic about this process, and I was excited about the prospect of reclaiming some of my living room space.
Two hours later, though, my spirits started to sink. We were making painfully slow progress because the kids kept on playing with every toy they picked up. And when I looked at the two piles, I noticed an imbalance. The Keep pile was growing so fast that it would soon qualify as a hill, and the Throw Away pile had about three things in it.
It was clear that this was not going to work, and since we were eating up precious weekend time, I decided to ditch the whole idea. Things got tossed randomly back into the toy boxes, and after a couple of weeks I tried a different tack. I waited until late at night, when I was sure the kids were sleeping, and as quietly as I could, I gathered a box of toys that I had not seen the kids play with for at least a year. I had the brilliant idea of sneaking the box into the back of the van, from where they could be easily deposited at the Salvation Army store the following day.
Sneaking toys out of the house is like trying to smuggle balloons filled with cocaine. Your chances of getting caught are virtually 100%, and when you do get caught, the fallout can be frightening. Hell hath no fury like a small child whose toys are being stolen.
Just as I was creeping out of the living room with the box of doomed toys, my younger son wandered through on his way to the bathroom. Even in his groggy, not-quite-awake state, he knew instantly what was going on. The tantrum that followed was ugly, and for weeks I had my then six-year-old admonishing me about the sins of taking other people’s stuff without permission.
My next tactic will be along similar lines to the last attempt, but I will go to the lengths of taking a day off work. On the designated day, I will leave the house at my usual time, to trick the kids into thinking that I am going to work. After the husband has packed them off to school, I will return, and for the next six hours I will declutter like a demon. When the kids come home from school, they may notice that the place looks tidier. But they will not know what is missing, because I will only get rid of stuff that I know they don’t use anymore.
If this plan fails, I may have to run a bulldozer through my living room. Either that or I will have to burn the house down.
Do you have the same problem with toy-clutter that I do? How do your kids react when you want to get rid of their old stuff?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Kirsten Doyle of Toronto, Canada. Β Kirsten can also be found on her blog,Β Running for Autism,Β or on Twitter @Running4autism. You can also connect with her on Facebook.
Photo credit: Slack pics. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.
I love the honesty of this post and it was a pure joy to read! I shamelessly throw out or give away broken or unused toys as soon as the kids are out of the house. Not once have they missed them. Scratch that – one time I threw out a broken… it was a vehicle of some kind. My son asked me about it with pleading in his eyes adn i felt like a total jackass. But within 30 minutes he was playing with something else and we are forever purged of that scrap of crap. ; ) I think how the kids take depends a lot on their age…
I have to be honest that I’m more sentimental than my kids are! When they get older the “out with the old” gets decidedly easier! π
I got them to get rid of things once a year when they were growing up (but still believed in Santa) by saying that Santa couldn’t deliver to homes that had too much “stuff” already and they had to make room for whatever Santa would bring.
At some stage, our roles got reversed when I’d find my kids wanting to get rid of things that I wanted to keep (What do you mean you’re too old for dolls … I’ve had that doll since I was 5 years old! Give her back to me!!) Said doll is still sitting safely in my cupboard! π
I’m currently psyching myself up for the mother of all clean-ups … we’ll be moving out of the home we’ve lived in for the past 20 years or so and I’m dreading it!! I mean I’m dreading having to sort through 20 years of clutter … but I AM looking forward to a “fresh start” once it’s done!! π
We declutter all of the time and my kids are aware that the toys/clothes/books are going to someone less fortunate. i just always talked to them in a we have to help others kind of way and it stuck with them, perhaps involve them in a different way – we gave to an abused womens shelter for the longest time and my youngest would painstakingly go through the dolls she knew she didn’t ever play with and ask if I thought that another little girl would like them
Alternatively, the daytime ditch sounds like a plan π
I have so been there!! I can’t declutter with my kids there because every little thing that has been neglected over time that I pick up instantly becomes their most treasured possession!
Great post that so resonates with me, Kirsten!!
Jen π
Haha!!! In our house the person who wants to keep everything is my husband. So many times he pulled something out of the trash bin just because he saw me throwing it away…
These days I get rid of things one piece at a time, and when my husband is not around. IT WORKS π
I am in the same exact boat as you Kirsten! My son goes to the extent that he wants to “keep” all of the toys that he has outgrown for his children! He is the same way about his clothes too! I basically take a toy out of rotation at a time, hide it in the closet, and if its not missed after some time off it goes. What I need to do, is send the kids to grandma’s house one weekend and do it all at once. Good luck with operation work day clean up π
Ha – have also been there! We just finished decluttering around the holidays. I enlisted the help of the girls in selecting toys that would be going to Good Will. There have been two stuffed animals that they have asked about since then, but then realized they had passed them on, and were surprisingly fine with it.
I have decided that going forward, as something breaks we put it in the trash, or as a toy is forgotten, I put it in a bag in my closet. Am hoping that will help control the clutter going forward.
Good luck Kirsten!
Hilarious! Lego bruises are the worst.
Yes, we have this problem. My strategy is move the toys they don’t use into closets inside dark garbage bags. After a few months if there have been no requests, I take them to the donation center. It works if they don’t go rummaging through the inner depths of their closets, which they usually don’t. But recently, I hosted a playdate, and the kids unloaded the closets! I had to start my multi-month process over.
My older son loves giving toys to toy drives, but he prefers to spend his money to buy a toy for this rather than part with something in his room. So I go with it.
Oh, I laughed. In a hysterical sort of way, you understand. I smuggle broken unused toys out via black rubbish-bags and at the bottom of boxes for The Red Cross or Salvation Army. Oh yes, indeed – the on top of the trailer destined for the dump approach never, ever worked here…