<dezignarob@...>

I like minimalism as a decorating trend. It looks beautiful in magazines. Monochrome always looks richer too. But we don't live in magazine pages. I think efficiency trumps minimalism. I  don't agree that minimalism encourages creativity, or that abundance somehow removes it, but I do see that the creativity might appear more visible when the background is empty. As an unschooler,  I like to see creativity happening all the time, just like seeing the learning and value in every activity Jayn chooses. Or if I can't see it, still assuming it to be there.

When Jayn was young and we had tons of toys, including Barbie houses and accessories, Jayn often preferred to make doll things like furniture from what she called "ordinary household objects" inspired by a segment on a Barbie princess video. She would use toilet rolls and cardboard and notebooks and kitchen containers to make the things - and mix them in with the purchased stuff. And I helped her with finding and gluing and cutting as asked, and the play itself. With hundreds of dolls, she still drew and cut her own paper dolls. With hundreds of stuffed toys, she still sewed her own monsters.

We also had (have still really) an ongoing project to build a space ship miniature from packaging. It will be cool if it is ever completed.

But this just reiterates what some others have shared already.

What I want to focus on is the danger that the other mom runs in becoming in her child's mind a "stingy Mom". My mother was like that, only in part from real financial stuff, but also because she comforted herself that I didn't need more toys (Barbie accessories) because then I would "be creative" with cardboard boxes and things. I heard her telling people this. ​

To be sure I did create dolls houses for my Barbies - with doors that were too small - and chairs from bits and bobs of packages, all the while desperately offended within my own sensibilities of the wrongness of scale of the things. Nothing fit the dolls but it was the best I could do. It was definitely me making do, and always wishing things were better. Incidentally I was doing this crafting entirely alone also - my Mom did sew me some cute clothes for my Barbies when she had leftover fabrics. The only thing I missed then was shoes.

I really had a strong resentment against my mother about the idea that she was withholding things I truly desired for stupid reasons as she expressed them, and that I needed to be taught or encouraged to be creative. Children - people - humans - are born naturally creative. Creative thinking (not just crafting activities) is the foundation of all problem solving.

What creativity will that child eventually develop to find ways to get the stuff she wants in the future? Is she likely, following the ideas of perceived utility, grow up to be more acquisitive of stuff? I'm including a link to a blog post I wrote about Low Budget filmmaking - because the ultimate end of this "deprivation enforces creativity" mindset, is trying to do good work with insufficient resources. Eventually the result is burn out.

Robyn L. Coburn