Say No to
Saving Stuff for your Kids

Saving stuff like big plastic toys for your grand kids just seems so wrong to me on so many levels. Parents do this all the time but that doesn't make it right.

It just seems like one more way that parents try to control their kids.

I know a lot of mother's who save those big plastic toys even when their kids are teenagers and have absolutely no interest in going down the little slides or playing in those big toy houses. It was fun for the kids when they were small, but they have moved on.

The mother's say they are saving those toy's for their grand kids. That way they will have some nice toys.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

First of all, this kind of saving stuff like this takes up an enormous amount of space in your home now. Don't you want to use that space for something your kids or you want to do now? All that space that those toys take up in your basement could be used by your older kids now. Your home should be set up for your use now and the people who are in it now, not some far off distant grandchild.

Second, couldn't you give that stuff to a family that could use it now? Wouldn't that be a better way? Some people cannot afford that nice plastic stuff while they have small children.

Third, and I think the most important, is that you are projecting what you want on your kids. You are saying that you want your kids to have kids so you can have grand kids. You are basically using guilt to manipulate your children into doing something that they may not want to do. What if they cannot have children for some medical reason? What if they don't want any? What if they never find a suitable spouse? What if they want to wait till they are older to have children?

You may say, well, I am saving it just in case, I am not telling them they have to have my grand kids. But you are, don't you see? Every time your kids go into the basement and see all those plastic toys that they have outgrown, they get it. It will be seared into their subconscious. They know what you are saving that stuff for. They will either do what you want or they will feel guilty if they don't deliver. Don't do that to your kids. Let them decide for themselves how to live their own lives.

I know it is hard to get rid of those big plastic toys. They are well made and last forever. But that is not the point.

The point is that saving stuff for your kids means you are trying to control what they do and how they live and that is wrong.

Return from Saving Stuff For Your Kids to Don't Let Your Clutter Control You.

Return from Saving Stuff For Your Kids to Organized-Way.

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