Su Penn

One thing that has started to shift for me since thinking about
unschooling is the idea that all our kids have "too many" toys. This
is a conversation my friends have all the time, how our kids have so
many toys, so many more than we had, it's like they just proliferate,
what can be done? Even six months ago, I was saying, "The only thing
I'd do differently as a mother is be more selective about which toys,
and how many, I let into the house."

Then I started reading these lists, and a few things started to get
clear for me.

First, I realized I was parroting the "too many toys" mantra without
really thinking about it. It's what all my lefty, organic-food-
eating, Birkie-wearing friends say. Also, we're Quakers, so there's
the whole burden of the Testimony of Simplicity hanging over our
heads. So I was walking around saying, "Too many toys! Too many
toys!" without ever thinking about what "too many" might really mean
or why I thought there were too many (just because there are more
than I had? Wrong answer! I want my kids to have lots more of lots of
things than I had in my childhood!)

Second, I realized that I had always had this other voice of regret
in my head...like, I would see something and think, "it would be so
cool to get that for Eric...but he already has too many toys." I felt
this cognitive dissonance because there were so many things I thought
would be valuable and interesting for him that we didn't have, but I
didn't think we could get because I thought we had too much stuff
already.

Third, I visited my friend down the street one day. This is a woman
who owns so much stuff it scares me--her daughter has no fewer than
six different winter coats, which would be too much for me--I'm not
capable of dealing with having to decide every day which coat my kid
is going to wear! But she loves buying cute things for her daughter,
and making those choices is pleasurable for them both. When I first
met this friend, her daughter (an only child at that time) had so
many toys, and so many that seemed like duplicates to me (like five
different ride-on toys) that I wondered if she had been thinking of
opening a day care!

Anyway, I dropped by one day and her 4-year-old had set up a whole
Fisher Price Little People village and was playing with it. Which
reminded me of...

Fourth, I remembered that when I was a kid, I never had enough of
anything to do anything cool. Like, I'd get a Legos starter set...and
then never any more Legos. So I could never build anything cool. If
my friend's daughter had been me, she would have gotten one Little
People set...period. And I thought about how rotten that felt to me
as a kid. How much I would have liked to have a whole village of
Little People, or so many Legos I could build a castle.

I no longer think we have "too many" toys. And I feel free to buy
something new for the kids if I think they'd enjoy it. It's much more
pleasant than looking at my kids' toy shelves and feeling sour
because they have so much stuff by some arbitrary standard.

Su


On Jan 8, 2006, at 1:28 PM, Wendy S. wrote:


> Thank you for sharing this. I'm with you. We have a *blast* giving
> and getting gifts. It *is* an affirmation of abundance and joy for
> us on that day. It's what works for our family and makes it really
> fun for us!!


============

"If she was too fond of her rubbishy children she couldn't help it."
--J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Ann

Su Penn <supenn@...> wrote:
Second, I realized that I had always had this other voice of regret
in my head...like, I would see something and think, "it would be so
cool to get that for Eric...but he already has too many toys." I felt
this cognitive dissonance because there were so many things I thought
would be valuable and interesting for him that we didn't have, but I
didn't think we could get because I thought we had too much stuff
already.

*********

I remember this same kind of thinking, and I realized that it wasn't my own thinking at all. I was responding to similar kinds of peer pressure. The difference for me was I'm a spender at heart so I would go ahead and buy it anyway much of the time and then beat myself up for it. Another thing I used to do is I would say to my kids since I bought you this..then you need to do that..fill in the this /that with toy/some chore. In my mind then I could justify that they somehow 'earned' it. Such crap! Making them earn something I wanted to buy anyway!!!
The other thing that I finally stopped to notice is how much my kids learn from their toys and games. Why would I want to limit that? Then one day a school at home mom I know shared that she had just spent $500 on curriculum for the year. Isn't it so great to spend that on toys, art supplies, books, games, software and outings rather than text books?
I do understand the whole keeping things simple though and sometimes the amount of stuff can be a bit overwhelming. But then I also realize what a blessing my kids' outgrown stuff has been to other people, so it is truly out of abundance that we can share with others I think.
It is just so great to hear about other moms that ENJOY buying stuff for their kids. I knew I couldn't be alone out there!

Ann



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Sandra Dodd

On Jan 10, 2006, at 7:32 AM, Ann wrote:

> -=- The other thing that I finally stopped to notice is how much
> my kids learn from their toys and games. Why would I want to limit
> that? Then one day a school at home mom I know shared that she had
> just spent $500 on curriculum for the year.-=-

Even if you "just" limited it to what you would have spent if they
were in school, or on a curriculum, it's still more justifiable. <g>
I figured when the kids were young that every puzzle and book, globe/
map & game was a part of unschooling. And with three kids, it gets
used again in no time, and shared, and seen differently.

When someone wants to unschool because it's cheaper or free, I
bristle some.

Sandra