For the first seven years of Boo’s life I never threw away a single toy. Every plastic party favor, every lost game piece, every McDonald’s toy, every lost Barbie shoe…all went into a large plastic bin in a coat closet. I first started doing this mostly because I couldn’t bear for it all to just end up in a landfill. I remember a National Geographic article I read about 10 years ago that had a dead baby Albatross split open with all the plastic pieces it had accidentally been fed by its mother. Eventually it was so full of junk from the landfill that it couldn’t eat actual food and died. That picture is in my head every time I go to throw something away now: mommy bird feeding Barbie shoe or Polly Pocket purse to baby bird.
The crazy thing is I didn’t even buy 99.9% of these toys. They were all free….party favors, Halloween prizes, homework rewards etc. As it started to fill up a plastic bin over the years I became more and more aware of how much our children consume these days. Keep in mind that all of these toy pieces were collected by ONE seven-year-old whose mother does not buy much of anything….then multiply this amount of toys by the number of children in the U.S:
SEVENTY-FOUR MILLION
I was saving all of these toys in hopes of making something out of them….maybe a sculpture or a collage….anything so they wouldn’t end up in the trash. When we had to sell everything for our move cross-country the toy bin did not make the cut and Boo ended up selling about half of them at a yard sale (and those are probably in the landfill about now). I was able to convince my earthy friend Megan to take the rest off my hand….she would make sure they aren’t thrown away.
A statistic:
The children of the United States are 3% of the world population and own 40% of the world’s toys.
That makes me want to throw up.
I rarely buy my kid anything and we still ended up with a gross amount of excess.
When we moved to the Hemlock Inn in June for a simpler life she was allowed to bring her Legos, her wagon and her dolls. That’s it.
And she’s played with them maybe a total of 3 times all summer. For the last 3 days she’s been playing with sticks.
She never missed a single of those toys I confiscated and hoarded away in the closet bin.
The less she has, the happier and more content she is.
The more her imagination runs wild.
The more she loves to read and write and make and build.
Me too.
Less is more.
I love this advice from The Minimalists…it’s not rocket science:
Spend half the money and twice the time with your family.
The return on your investment will be exponential.
If you’ve seen the movie Wall-E you know how this all ends otherwise:
More great reading:
Why Fewer Toys Will Benefit Your Kids at Becoming Minimalist
5 Ways to Spend Less and Reduce Clutter at Apartment Therapy
The Way of the Peaceful Parent at Zen Habits
What do you do with all your kid’s excess toys?
I feel ya… my daughter just had her 4th birthday party over the weekend and I can’t tell you how much junk comes with every toy nowadays. I mean, she received a barbie doll and in the packaging along with it, she got a pair of barbie shoes (with the guarantee that one will go missing soon), a small brush, a pair of teeny sunglasses, and a bunch of hair accessories. I mean, isn’t the barbie itself enough!? Now I am having the dilema of trying to figure out what to do with all these small toys since I’m pregnant and certainly can’t have them around when the baby comes… but like you, I hate to just throw them out. Do let me know if you happen upon a charity group who wants these things!
Love this blog post! Before we moved, I got rid of half of my kids’ toys and they still had so many that when we got to the new house, I put half of what was left in a storage closet and put the other half out in the playroom in the basement. What I didn’t anticipate was that my kids prefer to be upstairs instead of in the basement where all their toys are. They have only a few toys upstairs, but never get bored and never think to go downstairs and get more. It’s been great-toy clean up takes only a minute and even my one year old can do it by herself! Oh, and I tallied up how many of my kids’ toys I’ve bought for them and it was less than 1/8th. God bless relatives who love giving your kids stuff, right? 🙂
I’m 20 and don’t have kids, but I babysit for several different families (and have for many years). One of the families has tons of toys- they are harder to entertain and less imaginative. They are also much less likely to want to play outside or bake or the like. Another family has practically no toys (they technically have a play room upstairs, but I have only seen them use it once and I’ve babysat for them many times)- they have dress up clothes, a wii, plenty of board games, bikes, and books, but that is it (their youngest is under 2, and she does have maybe 10-15 plastic toys). They are the most imaginative kids I’ve watched and they are easily entertained. They might plan, bake for, and have a tea party for hours and love to explore nearby streams and forests. Based on these observations, when I do someday have kids, I’m definitely going the fewer (practically none) toys route.
Yep. I see it with my grandkids. So. Much. Stuff. My hubby and I have decided to cut back on toys (although we did give the oldest soccer shoes for his birthday) and instead give the boys “experiences”. Trips to the zoo and aquarium, but mostly to the park, the “free” nature center and our backyard … and lots of time to play with sticks, stones, mud, water, leaves, etc. Not to mention cooking and baking time with Nana and building and “fixing stuff” with Boppa (Sexist? Nope, it’s just our giftings!) and just hanging out and enjoying life together. We’re banking on building lifelong memories for them … with lots of fun thrown in!
Where I live in the uk, we can put out with the recycling just about every type of plastic. I encourage my children to make smart decisions on what to do with the prolific amount of junk they seem to collect!
I understand what you are saying as my kids had a ton of toys when they were younger and I bought a large portion of them. Having said that most of the toys that I bought were education geared. I will be the one to say though that the lack of kids imaginations today falls on the parents. The parents who use the TV, computer and hand held devices as babysitters. I watch young mothers nowadays and they get their little ones up, get them dressed and fed and then set them in front of the TV until lunch time, then feed them and put them down for a nap, get them up and give them a snack and set them back in front of the TV until dinner time then they get to enjoy some TV time with Dad and then either a quick snack and bed or straight to bed. Is it any wonder they are obese and have no imagaination? My children are now a graphic artist and a pastry chef. The pastry chef lives in your neck of the woods Ashley – she’s in Charlotte! 🙂
I keep trying to limit the amount of stuff my kids accumulate but it is hard. Even if I can try to control myself it is even harder controlling family and friends. I even have a drawer of gift cards my girls have received… I haven’t let them use because they don’t need anything.
Last count we had 120 dinosaurs in my house most of them little plastic ones.
I have even tried to convince them that Barbie is a hoarder and needs to get rid of half of her stuff. Stuffed animals seem to be multiplying on their own.
I even googled it “how do I stop buying my kids stuff”.
When they were younger I use to donate most of what they got at Christmas before it even got out of the box most from my step mom she was the worst offender. Then I think she caught on and start taking ever thing out of the boxes before she wrapped it.
It’s a battle I keep fighting. Good luck everyone
All this wasting is hideous. When I was a child we had very few toys. We played with matches or small pieces of wood, one or two dolls. The imagination and the creation are well better there! Good day
Your article falls very well. I wondered if I did not have to change direction(management) so that my blog works better. Buy fabrics(tissues) nine for example. Well I am going to continue to recycle. (I use an automatic translator because my English is very bad).
on pinterest (of all places!! lol) there are recycyle projects you could do with all this. using a lamp or a chunky mirror frame, glue all these toys on the surface. then spray the entire peice in a solid color spray paint. they used white and it looked amazing!.
and yes, americans own too much stuff!!!
Thank you for pointing out how this stuff is polluting our earth, our homes and our children’s psyche. My children want to be appreciative of every gift no matter how small, a wonderful quality until it takes over the house. It is all too much. Thank you for your voice of reason. I am on a similar journey and you inspire me!
We have participated on the shoebox project at school different times through the years…. Yugoslavia for instance when my oldest girls were small, was in such need for the children… So at Christmas you were to make up a gift, small things in a shoe box for a girl or boy. Socks, mini soaps, hair brush, and small toys like what you displayed there in your picture… That meant so much to kids over there. Then I heard of a girl adopted in Canada that had been from Yugoslavia, and her Canadian school was going to fill up shoe boxes that year for poor children. She got very quiet and tears rolled down her face and she said SHE received one when she lived there as an orphan and how it was the most amazing and wonderful thing she’d ever had…. Maybe organize something in each neck of the woods out there, and try and bring some light to some child far away that has nothing.
Horrifying to see this amount of plastic from ONE child. I have three, but somehow we don`t have so many toys. Some Playmobil and Lego, stuffed animals and of course the cheapcheap stuff you receive everywhere. My Kids don´t Play with most of it, so we try to not let it into the house in the first place. Nonetheless the stuff is there in the world and I guess it is a nice idea to donate the toys. I like your blog and restarted following it.
I know it’s been a while since you posted this, but i came across this when my daughters school came up with a “fun”d raiser. Maybe you’d like to post it as an update on your fb page? it is a great way to get rid of toys!