benefit #18 – room to add
my daughter celebrated her 3rd birthday this past weekend. princesses were everywhere – on the decorations, the paper products, the cake, and on her presents. everywhere i looked this weekend, i saw princesses… and my daughter smiling. she couldn’t get enough! every card and every gift with a princess brought a smile to her face and a cheer of “princesses!” her joy brought me joy.
looking back on the day as we were taking the new princess toys to the basement toy room, it occurred to me that one benefit of minimalism is that there is “room to add.” because we have kept our kids’ toys down to a minimum through regular sorting and purging, there is room in our basement for new princess toys. conversely, if the toy room was already stuffed full of toys, there would be no room for my daughter’s new treasures.
and this benefit relates to more than physical belongings. consider this, if our schedules are so full with no room for margin, there is no opportunity to add something new or something better (whether that be joining a gym, getting to know the neighbors, or handling a family crisis). a too-full calendar leaves no room for addition.
although adding things may seem counter-productive to one who wants to become minimalist, it is in fact, one good reason to consider it.
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I was wondering what your regular process for purging your children’s toy is? I TRY to do this, but my son always says, “But it’s my favorite…” I know it’s not really his favorite, but I don’t want to FORCE him to give up anything.
Any words of advice? (I have a 5 year old and an almost 3-year old.)
@kirwin – i can offer two ideas that we have tried successfully in the past.
1) i think it started when my son was three and we convinced him to give up his pacifier to “the new babies” at the hospital, but my 6-year old son has always responded well to “let’s find some toys to give to kids who don’t have any.” this, of course, only works if you actually have a place to take them because goodwill/salvation army won’t typically accept toys.
2) we have explained to our kids that we need to get rid of some toys because we are running out of space in their toy room. then, we asked them to each pick 5 toys (or 10 toys) that they would be able to get rid of. that gives them complete control of the situation. they will usually start small (little plastic animals), but hey, at least it’s a start.
all in all, we have always tried to include them in the maintaining process so they felt in control and part of the decision. i hope that one of those ideas will be helpful to you. our kids are 6 and 3 so pretty similar to yours.
I started off with minimal content in a small flat.
5 years later, still have the small flat, now have a wife and we’re bursting at the seams; time for a huge clear out!