Too Many Toys

A friend of mine used to have a keyring that said, He who dies with the most toys wins. I thought this was just an amusing (yet accurate) summation of modern capitalism: that the accumulation of wealth is the yardstick by which a person is measured. But judging by the evidence accumulating in my kids’ bedrooms, there actually is some sort of competition going on to see how many toys someone can collect in a lifetime.
What they don’t know is that I am actively working against them in their quest to be regional toy magnates. Before Christmas or a birthday rolls around, I have a cathartic clean up of the shelves and toy boxes in our house. Anything that requires batteries, has parts that can’t be accounted for or hasn’t been played with in the past six months is moved on so somebody else can have a turn. (Op shop ladies all over Lismore light up when they see me coming with my armload of goodies.)
Of course getting stuff out of the house has to be done without the kids’ knowledge, otherwise they will claim each and every forgotten item is “too special”. Taking toys away from children when they’re not looking sounds cruel, but it’s the only way to keep on top of it. Otherwise I’d have to keep building shelves, and there just isn’t enough room in our house to accommodate everything that has ever spewed forth from brightly coloured wrapping paper.
Our eldest is eight. Let’s say she’s had 10 friends to each of her birthday parties. There’s 80 presents right there. Throw in eight Christmases, three birthdays for her little sister and numerous visits from the grandparents (who insist on showering them in gifts every time they come up for a visit) and we’ve got some serious storage issues.
And the more they have, the less they appreciate what they’ve got. (The thrill really seems to be in the getting and the unwrapping.)
I have never been a hoarder. Life seemed so much simpler when I could get all of my possessions into the back of a panel van.
The clutter of modern life annoys me (which is understandable given the amount of time I spend moving plastic ponies and wooden vegetables out of the living room), but I really can’t relax when it is in my face like that.
I blame the cheap globalised labour and throwaway culture that are symptoms of the rampant consumerism destroying our planet. So here’s a new slogan I’m thinking about getting put onto my key-ring: He who teaches their child to live with less wins.