One thing many people have asked me about over the last few years is my willingness to get rid of baby stuff that we are done with. Apparently lots of people hold onto things sometimes for the possibility of a second child who will use them and sometimes for sentimental reasons.
Me, not so much. I hate clutter (except on my desk which is always a cluttered mess, no matter how hard I try to keep it clean).
After my mom and sister died, and having more then one battle with my brother over some of their stuff, I no longer hold any attachment to things, they just aren’t worth ruining family relationships over. I am a firm believer that items do not retain memories, and therefore stuff is just stuff. Mr. MPB supports this approach. So, with Little MPB’s stuff, we are very selective on sentimental things that we will keep.
Also, we decided from the very beginning to assume that we would only have 1 child. Which means, we are not keeping anything for the possibility of a second. (Our back-up plan for a miracle second child was to re-buy everything).
Given this, we only keep items that we truly think Little MPB may one day actually want or something that either Mr. MPB or I really want. So far we’ve kept the a little baby toy that was the first gift he was given by the first one of our friends who met him, the toy that was on the top of his first birth cake, a few pieces of clothing, and his first painting which sits in a frame by my desk. I should acknowledge that I know I’ll struggle to part with his books as he grows out of them, as I have never been able to get rid of books.
So, right away we started selling things that we didn’t use. For example, I sold our UppaBaby Diaper Pail. We found we just used our kitchen garbage and emptied it daily so it wasn’t a problem. And, I sold our bottle warmer right away too (A very wise doctor in the USA told us not to start using a bottle warmer because formula fed babies don’t know milk can be warmed up unless we start using the bottle warmer. So, they will happily drink milk straight from the fridge, which meant we were never tied to warm milk.)
And, the second we’ve stopped using items, I’ve also sold all the larger items. We’ve sold our mamaroo, bouncer, bottle cleaning stuff, glider chair, strollers, dresser, jolly-jumper, ride along toys that he’s outgrown, etc. And right now I am selling our pack ‘n play, a high chair and our hiking backpack/carrier. Anything we buy used (which was most larger things), I simply sell it for what we paid as I’m not doing this to make a profit and then we put the money straight to Little MPB’s education fund. As for clothing that Little MPB outgrows and the smaller toys, I initially donated almost everything to a local charity and now I send almost all of it to his younger sibling – I pay a small fortune to mail it, but it’s worth because I know it’s being well used and I love the idea of them sharing clothing and toys.
What do you do with all your baby stuff once your done with it?
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Being part of the adoption world has been an eye opening experience, as I knew it would be the moment we began considering adoption to grow our family.
Before I jump into this, I have to start by saying I am referring to adoptive parents, adopted children in this post simply for clear language. We do not refer to ourselves as adopted parents or to Little MPB as an adopted child on a day-to-day basis.
Our real life experiences are nothing like our online experiences. Our real life experiences typically consist of:
- relationships we have developed with other open-adoption families who we met through our local adoption agency. While we don’t actually share a lot in common in our day-to-day lives, we do tend to share our perspective as adoptive parents who want to find ways to help our children as they grow up. And, we also all hopeful that eventually our children will all be able to support each other as they grow up and start to explore how adoption forms part of their individual identity. We are all involved in open adoptions and share the same core values regarding openness.
- relatives who were adopted internationally in closed adoptions about 20 years ago.
- a few adoptees who are now adults that we randomly know.
Being part of the online community has been fascinating. There have been multiple online stories that have shocked me to my very core and have brought tears to my eyes. I have read all kinds of stories, the list too long to write. But one consistency between the stories is that there seems to be a whole lot of judgement from some of those involved in the online adoption. Judgement from all sides – adoptive parents, adopted children, birth families and even just random people (aka trolls). The perspective on the internet seems to be rather slanted to say that there is a lot of damage that has been done through the adoption process to a whole lot of people. There is no doubt that adoption has not been good for everyone in the world, I am not trying to open that debate here today.
I think the point of what I’m trying to say is that I am actually very conscious about the adoption related articles I read and the blogs I follow. In fact, for me to follow anything adoption related it has to be a well balanced perspective and it has be constructive to help me learn as a parent. That doesn’t mean that for me to read something it has to be about a someone living a fairy-tale life – in fact, many that I follow are not living fairy-tale lives. Rather they are just living life and processing their experiences regardless of if their experience is that of an adopted child, adoptive parents or birth parents. Really, it’s no differently then how I view my blog – I am just living my life and sharing my perspectives as they arise, grow and develop over time. But I don’t tend to read sensationalized, extremist adoption blogs/articles. (To be fair that’s also how I read non-adoption related blogs/articles too, especially political articles these days – but that a different topic for a different day).
I guess, maybe what I’m trying to say is that the online voice is not the same as the real life voice I hear. And, I’m not sure why that is?
Specifically, I hear a lot of online talk about adoptees as either happy/well-adjusted or unhappy/angry and I rarely hear about good adoptive parents or good open adoption relationships. And, I wonder, why don’t I hear that same happy/unhappy language and that same negativity about adoptive parents in real life? My real life exposure is much more ‘balanced’ (for lack of a better word) – way less negativity and way less focus on adoption in general. In our real lives, adoption is part of our families narrative, but it’s not the only part of the narrative.
I don’t have an answer to this. But is sure has me thinking today. Maybe I live in some sort of bubble?
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