Letting Go of Childhood Toys

I’ve often written about my desire to to create a clean and fun play space for my kids. But, as I sort through the stuff and try to figure out what to keep and what to donate, I’ve been realizing that letting go of the past can be hard to do.

While my kids are only 8, in my eyes, they are growing up too quickly. Gone are their toddler days when they played with their plastic kitchen sets and dressed up for hours on end in their Disney princess clothes. Yet, those kitchen sets and princess dresses still take up space in our basement.

I should probably donate those toys to make room for my kids’ current playthings, but getting rid of the old playthings is hard to do. Shedding my kids’ former toys is like losing a little bit of their childhood. I guess other parents have the same problem when it comes to kids’ toys. My dad must have every toy my sister and I ever owned still stored in his basement.  One mom’s blog post on the parentingsquad.com echoes the same feelings I feel. She describes going through her children’s old childhood toys and remembering the various childhood stages that they belonged to.

Kids go through the same separation anxieties with toys, too. The feelings that a child can develop for his toys, and the pain he can feel upon losing them, even once he’s fully grown, is at the center of the heartstring-pulling movie, Toy Story 3. But in the end of that movie, a kid’s old toys get a new owner and a fresh start when they are donated to a little girl, who can fully appreciate the playthings.

I guess that means I should take a cue from the movie, clear out a few old toys, and make room for exciting chapters (and a cleaner, larger playspace) in our lives.