The Community for Catholic Moms

Family reaction?

I was wondering how your families are reacting to the 40 day purge?

I had a funny conversaiton with my 17 yo son yesterday. The bag I got rid of was filled with clutter gathered from the desk where he spends much of his time studying and on the computer. When he saw the bag, he says "When I have my own home I am not going to have so much stuff in it. I guess you could say it will be minimalist." As I pointed out that the contents of the bag I was filling were all from his desk we both had a laugh and I said "Why wait? You are free to start any time you like."

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Anne Matthews on February 24, 2010 at 10:32am

cute. i've been waiting for everyone to get out of the house so I can declutter in secret :)

Permalink Reply by Jenny on February 24, 2010 at 12:30pm

My husband has been a cheerleader, but has not contributed to a bag yet. My 5yo son who has a much greater natural sense of neatness than anyone else in the family, actually suggested a purge of his room (provided that he was rewarded for his contributions.)

This is about the 3rd time in a year we have purged in their room. Each time we are all ready to part with more. And my sons, as young as they are, appreciate how much easier it is to keep their space clean. Plus, they hear less nagging from their mother:)

My family sees this as a win win.

Permalink Reply by Kathy C. on February 24, 2010 at 12:35pm

My husband thinks it is a great idea but hasn't been home to help with it yet. My sons ages 4 and 3 were not thrilled the first when I went through their toys but they didn't argue too much.

Permalink Reply by Judith Gibbons Riordon on February 24, 2010 at 6:55pm

My 5-year-old is having a hard time. It really upsets him when we decide to give things away or throw things out. I find myself sending him off with a sibling to be distracted whenever it's time to do our bag for the day. But sometimes he finds things in the trash and takes them back out, and I haven't even gotten to the boys' room yet! Is anyone else getting a negative reaction from little ones?

Permalink Reply by Christine Volpe on February 25, 2010 at 6:53am

I've made it through the five-year-old stage with six children and yes, it is totally normal for them to resist getting rid of things. Once, when one of my daughters found something in the garbage, I actually blamed my poor husband! We still joke about that. But it taught me to bury things in the trash so they weren't easily visible, or even to take them right out the door before being seen. Unless you are throwing out their favorite toy, most times I've found they don't miss things that just "disappear".

Permalink Reply by Anne Matthews on February 25, 2010 at 3:41pm

the kids have no idea. the husband is digging it.

Permalink Reply by Mary Alice Teti on March 3, 2010 at 11:18pm

I love this! My kids really notice when the playroom is cleaner. They play better, and clean up is easier. We have had a rule that if it takes us more than 15 minutes of really working to clean it all up, we have too many things. However, when it comes to deciding what is going to go, that is really tough!

I need to get to work in the basement, where I have been stashing all the things I just didn't care to deal with, there are boxes from our move down there that never even got unpacked. The problem is, whenever we go down there, the kids bring up the toys and add them to the playroom. Perhaps I need to make a bin for things we want to save to rotate in and give them the option of holding on to stuff that way, in any event there is no reason to have 8 jillion matchbox cars in the playroom, they just wind up getting dumped out and tripped over.

Permalink Reply by Kathy C. on March 4, 2010 at 8:09pm

We actually do this. I have two separate bins of toys and once every moth or every couple of months(when I get around to it I guess) I switch out the bins and it is like they have a whole new of toys to play with again.

Permalink Reply by Cindy Dodd on March 16, 2010 at 2:05pm