Ever since my eldest was a tot I formed an opinion that plastic was horrendous, and made a firm resolution to remove it from my house. I hate everything about it - I hate the feel of it, the poisons in it and I hate the cheapness of it. It's ugly, nasty stuff that uglifies everything made from it.
I also hate the way that, because toys are so cheap, we accumulate masses of 'things' in the name of gift-giving and love. Because of this 'easy come, easy go' nature of most toys, children become not only dismissive of gifts, but also highly disrespectful of them too.
The last couple of years I have let the 'less is more' rule in my house slide. Instead of insisting on one or two quality gifts for Eid, I have become lazy and gone for the cheap option, buying masses of plastic to make my boys happy.
And for the first day it did make them happy. But then I began to notice something :: they stopped playing. I mean, they had so much stuff they were literally confused with what to play with. And so they didn't play with anything.
Then if that wasn't bad enough, when they did play they lacked imagination and started to let the toy dictate play, rather than the play dictate what they toy should be. So many closed-end toys which beeped and buzzed and moved, and my children had become demoted to chief button-pusher and nothing else.
The final straw came yesterday morning when I went into the boys' room and was met with a scene from a gas explosion - without the gas explosion. Broken toys, ripped books, disrespectful use and storage, and literally a floor litered with debris and no room to move.
I was ashamed at how I had let things slide, and more importantly I was more than a little cross at how blase my children had become towards their gifts.
I took a roll of binliners and bagged and bagged and bagged - four binliners full of things for the charity shop, and a binliner full of broken toys. A whole BINLINER full of broken toys.
Enough!
I tidied the remaining toys into several baskets, and put out the wooden toys that had been shoved behind the mess into full view. The result?
I am glad to say I had, by the end of the day, two children who appreciated the toys I decided to leave them (knowing full well I could quite easily bag those up too!), and enough space for two happy boys to play like they used to - with imagination.
I hope I never again forget this basic rule of parenting :: less is always more, one quality item outweighs a tonne of rubbish.
