Why did we take our kids toys away?

read below to find out!

(caveat: I’m not a writer, and would never pretend to be. This is mostly just random quick thoughts.... please try to follow along.)

Also, I’m not selling anything... this is just a convenient place to tell our story!

I don't know how many times I muttered to myself "we don't have to live like this..." as I picked up random ass toys in the basement that were everywhere. Way. Too. Often.

Don't get me wrong, they "cleaned up" every day. Mind you, cleaning up is tears streaming down their face, wall to wall screams of terror, but 'they' cleaned up. These, muttering sessions, are just those other days where the fight wasn't in me/us. It was always the same, I would be trying to crisscross through MY basement to MY office only to find myself having to turn on all of the lights, just for safety. I knew there was a wooden Peppa Pig block hiding just waiting to tear open my callused feet. Inevitably, my foot would find it, I'd lose my mind, and begin scooping everything, everywhere into storage bins.

We have all the storage you can ask for.

Everything hides something: storage ottomans, storage benches, storage cubes, storage cabinets, toy bins, toy boxes, storage rooms with storage shelving stacked with storage bins, boxes and storage cabinets.

Yet, chaos. It could also be because we have a bunch of kids too, who knows.

I'd dream about a giant shovel just to scoop it all, and drop it into a dumpster. But where would I get a dumpster? Heck, where can I find a giant shovel for it? I can't possibly fit all of this into the garbage can. Where would I put it in the meantime as I slowly shawshank the toys out of my pant legs into the garbage. How can I just start over? I hate all of this crap. We have 25 letters out of our 26 piece learning piece of crap. Why do we keep this? I try to complete the same stacking puzzle thing, but can NEVER complete it. Every time I think I find that last missing piece, I realize someone has taken the other pieces and now I need two more. It feels like we have all of the toys they need.

It. Never. Ends.

Scoop it, store it, and live to fight another day.

January, 2018: We decided to move, not because of our toy issue, well... thinking back, maybe! We were out of space. Not just toy storage space, but living space. And the boys were littler then (5, 2, 1...and a baby girl on the way). For those that don’t us that well, I should’ve probably mentioned that: Mayson b. Jan 2013, Jackson b. Aug 2015, Tyson b. Oct 2016, Mattison not yet here at the time, b. May 2018)

Now's our chance -- let's sort through this. Well, we did... kind of... we also let our 5 year old help pack a lot of their toys. He was excited, I was excited.

Big mistake.

While we thinned out a lot, we ended up with mixed up toys, everywhere and things that should’ve never made the move.

Fast forward to March 2018: We move and I think now's our shot to start fresh. Let's keep some in storage, and just let them play with certain things...

Ok: Here you go kids, here's a random ass box of toys. Have fun. Go. Have. Fun.

Kids: "Dad, thanks for the hot wheels track, but do we have any cars for it?" Me: "No, they're packed, there's too much stuff...play with something else. Here’s some blocks. Drive those.”

I'd go into our storage room (which is locked away from them) pull out a couple random things, and give to them. That should fix the problem, right?

Bahahahaha!

The complete lack of respect for....anything. Not everything, I mean they're relatively nice to each other. I use relatively nice, loosely... let’s just say they aren’t displaying any serial killer tendencies... just normal ‘boys being asshole boys’ stuff. But to their toys they couldn't care less. Why should they? They have unlimited shit to play with? If it breaks, who cares?! There are the obvious threats of "no Christmas toys!", "you don't treat your toys with any respect". Why stop at toys? You break furniture, you jump off furniture...They are 5, 3, and 2 year old boys -- now -- (have to always keep that in mind).

Once our oldest, Mayson, starts to piece together spelling and packaging on boxes and all that... he realizes Amazon is a thing. A wonderful thing that makes almost daily deliveries for our OutOfNormal.com business supplies. Around August/September he tells us he wants an $80 robot piece of crap toy he saw on a YouTube commercial. He keeps adding it to his "A-m-a-z-o-n" (spells it out to me, each time) cart and shows me and says "can you buy this for me." Hell no, we're not buying that piece of crap for you. Ask Santa for it. Mayson never loses interest. Always says he wants it. Every Santa he meets, “I want a blue boxer" - the robot.

I see this robot in Target, in person, and think, really? $80 for this thing? I'm sure he'll lose interest in it before he breaks it and we can always re-sell it.

Well, Santa got it. Of course, he found it on eBay for far less than that $80 tag, because, well, Santa knows this iteration of Barr boys.

Turning point:

Christmas comes, they get 'less' than usual, but still way too much shit. Christmas was on a Tuesday. If I recall, it was a Tuesday morning. I went back to work Wednesday, and by the time I got home from work Wednesday afternoon the prized gift, the blue robot, was broken. How did my wife find out? She asked why he wasn't playing with it (because he had been obsessively playing with it)... he just shrugs his shoulders and says "It's broken... it fell off the table and now it just makes weird sounds". And that's the end of that.

Didn't. Give. A. Shit.

He wanted this thing for months.

Tangent: The only thing Jackson consistently asked for was a magic wand. Not just a regular magic wand but one that shoots blue sparks out of it. Santa did his best, and found one that lights up with a blue light and makes a cool crackling sound... we're not surprised that HE broke that (stepped on it and cracked it) on Christmas day. He was upset by it.... and we offered to fix it with tape. With it being Jackson, there was a pretty high likelihood it was going to be taken away before it breaks, as it's too weapon'y for one of our kids. It was worth a shot for Santa.

I digress... Mayson, the blue boxer boy, didn't care that this toy he coveted for months, broke, less than 36 hours after receiving it.

What is their problem?

How could they not care about anything?

What are we doing wrong?

We really should do something different.

I don’t like who they’re becoming.

Enter: My wife. The Savior. She finally does it.

Becky texts me on Dec 27th mid-day. "I just want to take all of their stuff away." Along with some other choice expletives. I said "let's do it".

No going back now. We both agree!

So, she takes away almost everything, leaving them with some puzzles, crayons, books, coloring books. Think about it this way: some kids would kill for that level of stimulation that these brats are roughing it with and taking for granted.

She said the boys didn’t shed a single tear when it was all being taken away. I mean, it’s good they’re not overly attached to their possessions... but show some life, kids!

When I got home, I took away what she left behind...not the puzzles, crayons, books, coloring books... the random toys that somehow were missed. Those dumb shopping carts they crash into each other, gone.

Now What?

Do we just give it all away? Try to sell it piece by piece? Who wants to buy used and broken down toys 2 days after Christmas? Nobody. Their value couldn't be any worse. Where do we put it? Some of it was stashed in the laundry room, some of it was in the garage, a lot in our office, a lot in our storage room (which was overflowing with our own adult shit we don't need). Not “adult toys”, but just the regular, mid 30s people crap that you think you need some day. Plus, my box of random cables, wires and AV connections... just in case.

But, really what’s the plan. Do we pile it up and set it on fire and make the kids watch it all melt away into a giant plastic blob in the backyard? “DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES!! LOOK AT IT! You did this to yourselves!”

No. They’re kids.

We took a day, communicating our ideas mostly by text message to each other, because that's kind of how we have to communicate in our life. Maybe give them back a toy or two. Maybe donate the rest of it. Scattered thoughts. First, we need to inventory what we have. It’s Friday night let's do this. No wait, Becky teaches at night until 9:30. We need time. We need kid-less time!!

We need the time to take it all out of the woodwork... sort through what we have that’s still complete. Decide what is worth keeping, PLUS unpack the toys we never unpacked for god's sake!! We need enough time to get it all out and then have enough time to put it all back in an orderly fashion before the monsters awake.

Side note: Everyone gets sick. Like super clingy and sick. Unrelated to the toy removal, but complicates our plans. Up all night with snotty and crying kids makes the deployment of any idea a little tough.

Somehow over the weekend we inventory, and purge, a lot. Thank you Goodwill. And also, sorry about that Goodwill.

We decided to store what is left of their toys in our unfinished room. Locked away from them. We needed to do a lot of cleanup there for ourselves... cleared off a few racks of shelving space and priced out the toys (more on that soon) and we’re ready to roll!

What's the plan?

They can earn back a toy(s) based on their behavior for that day to play with the next day.

How do we do this?

We created "Barr Bucks" -- they each start their day with $5 in Barr Bucks. If they get in trouble, they lose a $1 Barr Buck. Whatever money they have left, they can head on down to the Barr Toy Store when the store opens at 6:30 PM each night.

They can buy back the toys they used to be overwhelmed by assuming they behaved themselves enough and had the cash to buy it. We priced accordingly: $1 - $5. As an example, you can get a couple bouncy balls for $1 (for those that didn't have a good day)... some $5 items are parents supervision only (example: kinetic sand) some have time restrictions (only during quiet time for things like Play-Doh). You must clean up your days worth of toys and bring them back unbroken to be able to buy your next days toy.

We were finally ready to open the store on New Years Day. Everyone made it the whole day with no timeouts and no dollars being taken away. There were threats (do you want me to take a dollar away from you? I'm going to take a dollar away from you if you keep doing that...) Everyone made it to the grand opening of the store. They were so excited. They all picked their stuff out. Some saved a couple bucks to roll over to the next day.

We've also incorporated "Barr Bonus Bucks" which allow them to be rewarded for above and beyond good behavior and can use them towards earning experiences (example, fun trips, lunch out with a parent, indoor movie nights). They've surprisingly been going out of their way to try to earn those.

We've noticed the older two are starting to realize there is value in sharing their toys and/or combining their bucks to buy a toy they will end up playing with together (example: Play Doh during quiet time when the younger two are sleeping.)

What I’ve learned:

They did without anything for about a week and survived. As time went on, the grinch side of me wanted to get rid of it all permanently. But... didn’t.

During the great toy drought of 2018, they never really claimed to be bored when they didn’t have them, their imagination soared. The first toy-less day, they made stick people out of a popsicle stick. The stick people were their “elves” and they’d hide their elf throughout the house. Sad, but extremely satisfying to see them use their imagination.

When it came time to clean up, there hasn’t been any meltdowns due to the messes being minimal. Most of all, we are not being swallowed by their toys that were literally everywhere, regardless of having two designated play rooms. They’ve been much better focused and have spent more time on one activity than they did in the past.

It was a lot of work to initially get through sorting it, deciding what to keep and all that.

It’s going to be a lot of work sticking to it.

It’s going to be the most work to remain diligent in making sure they return the toys they check out and make sure we’re consistent in doling out the punishments.

The thought I keep coming back to is we created this problem. Because we didn’t like who they were turning into, we made a change. Talk to me in a couple months and we’ll see how it’s going, maybe they’ll have gotten some of those brand new Christmas presents available for purchase at the Barr Toy Store by then.

Parenting. Best time of our lives!

~Tyler & Becky just trying to survive in 2019.