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Ultra AnnoyedParents who throw away their kids' toys (self.PetPeeves)

submitted by kanna172014

That shit hurts more than they realize. I lost so many of my favorite toys because they were thrown away because they were bedraggled or had paint rubbed off their faces but even then I was attached to them. The worst one though was when my parents sold our SNES system and all our games since that was among the few things we had to do.

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[–]BlueberryHatK4587 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Same here,I hate them for throwing away my toys like that.Even if I was growing out of them,I still wanted to keep them...and they are gone forever

[–]Honest-Scar-4719 9 points10 points  (0 children)

My stepmom decided by herself that I was too old for my ninja turtle action figures and shipped them all to her cousins kids in Florida. My toys had some light wear to them but were overall fine. The kids who received them hit them with golf clubs and blew them up with firecrackers. I mean they did it with all of their other toys so I don't doubt that they did with mine too

[–]alcalaviccigirl 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I had a neighbor bipolar . she'd have rages ( especially when she chose not to take her pills ) she would make her kids cry by throwing out the toys .she after many complaints moved out .

[–]BRUHTHROWTHISAWAY 7 points8 points  (1 child)

I will never forget getting a stuffed animal from my grandma for my birthday and a week later my mom dragged me on a trip with her and my sister only to reveal she’d packed up the toys she assumed I didn’t use anymore and dropped them at a goodwill. I sat there sobbing as I saw the head of the stuffed animal my grandma got me sticking out of one of the bags. I’ll never forgive her for that, mostly because when I told her she shrugged and gave an “oh well” kind of answer.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That sounds so sad 

[–]RedditObserver13 4 points5 points  (1 child)

I had probably over 100 plushies all with names and backstories, and one day my mom decided she was just gonna bag and donate them all, except the one I had with me at school when she decided to go donate. Including the one I had since the day of my BIRTH. Honestly I could cry thinking about it right now. I accumulated a bunch more after she did that, though, but they aren't as special. Long live Mr. Kissy Fish, the sole survivor of my mom's plush purge

[–]HotCartographer5239 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mr kissy fish a survivor 💯💯

[–]honevmustard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah I agree with this. My mom gave away my brother’s hot wheels collection when he was like 10 and not ready to let them go. I’m really into decluttering/ not hoarding things and about to have my first kid, and I will definitely go through their belongings with them when doing things like that so I don’t make this mistake.

[–]Independent-Swan1508 2 points3 points  (0 children)

bro i feel this. my monster high collection i had like 12 of em 💔. i had so many as a child and one day it was gone. those dolls are so expensive now

[–]notreallylucy 4 points5 points  (5 children)

I think this deprives children of learning a life skill. Kids have to learn how to make decisions and let things go.

[–]RhoadsOfRock 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think this was my mom's approach while raising my brother and I. She would not outright get rid of anything we had, not even in secret / behind our backs, but as we would acquire so much and border on too much, and as we grew older, she would ask us if there was anything we didn't care about anymore, did not use or play with, etc., never mentioning that we COULD hold on to what ever we wanted / everything, pass on to any of our kids, etc., but yeah, most of the time it made sense to us, like go ahead and let our younger cousin have or play with those old Thomas The Tank Engine die-cast metal toy trains, or sell those plastic cars we played with when we were 2-4 in a yard sale.

Our dad was nothing like that, however, and I am still bitter about a toy train set that was given to me for one Christmas. It was small enough that Hot Wheels cars could fit on the tracks almost perfectly, and the engine itself was, electric or battery operated, I absolutely LOVED it, and I played with it a lot while watching Back To The Future Part III a lot.

Well, it had to stay at my grandparents house, so that I had something to play with when I would go for visits (and my dad moved back in to their house and lived there for years after my mom divorced him).

After he remarried and moved into his second wife's house, I have no idea what ever happened to my toy train set. I don't know if it made a move with him, or if he got rid of it. And even if it did make a move with him, who knows what ever happened to it by now; he's since left / been divorced from second wife, and he now lives nowhere near where my grandparents were OR where his second wife still is.

In 2018, he did move in with my brother in my town, and he had a storage unit somewhere here. It's possible that he DID still have it, or even still does now, but I seriously doubt it. When I asked him about it some years ago, he had no idea.

[–]youchosehowiact 1 point2 points  (3 children)

You can teach children to make decisions/let go of things without betraying their trust by taking away things they aren't ready to get rid of. My mom did this with me and my sister. Every year around the start of school we had to get rid of some toys and books we had outgrown or just weren't interested in anymore or we didn't get new ones for birthdays or Christmas. We also were taught there were lasting consequences for our actions by not being allowed to back and change our mind later on and get those toys we wanted. We had to wait until the next year. Sometimes relatives wouldn't follow my mom's rules and would buy us toys anyway but they always got put up to where we couldn't have them until the next year. I think there was only once my mom had to do this for my sister and twice for me. I was more stubborn and also used to crying and getting my way because I was the youngest and had health issues as a child.

[–]notreallylucy 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Yes, I agree. By making those decisions behind your child's back they're depriving the child of the opportunity to make those decisions themselves.

[–]youchosehowiact 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Sorry I misunderstood what you meant.

[–]notreallylucy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No worries, I might not have been clear.

[–]Deastrumquodvicis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Or thrown away as part of a “well, you ought to have tidied it” purge of the bedroom. After we’d been through two house floods that did the same thing. My kid-brain probably didn’t know a difference between the two types of event!

[–]ScaryAssBitch 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Throw out all your parents’ stuff after you send them to a retirement home.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm the youngest. My family gave all my toys away to two nieces who destroyed everything. Years later one parent called me, demanding to know what happened to all my toys since they were now valuable. I reminded them -- very full of bitterness.

ETA when they gave my stuff away and I objected, they screamed at me for being "selfish"

[–]Slobbadobbavich 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This type of thing is why I am a little bit of a hoarder as an adult (nothing bad, I just like collecting things now).

[–]8kittycatsfluff 0 points1 point  (9 children)

Why did they sell your system and your games? That sounds like some kind of cruel punishment.

I can see pitching paint faded lone action figures, because I would probably do the same, but the video game and games is going a bit far.

[–]kanna172014[S] 2 points3 points  (8 children)

Drugs. By that point they were addicted to crack and sold a lot of stuff to fund their habit. But they claimed at the time that they were letting their friend "borrow" the system and games but they never brought it back. It was a few years later that they admitted they sold it.

[–]8kittycatsfluff 1 point2 points  (7 children)

Oh wow. I'm sorry to hear that, that sounds rough 😔

[–]kanna172014[S] 0 points1 point  (6 children)

It was even worse because I was around 16 at the time and my brother 15 and we'd outgrown toys by that point and we didn't have cable and my parents were too nervous to let us go outside without them out there too and since they rarely felt like going outside with us, we were usually stuck in the house and the SNES was about the only thing we had to do besides read.

[–]8kittycatsfluff 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Why didn't they want you to go outside without them? Bad neighborhood?

[–]kanna172014[S] 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Just over-protective overall (though in my step-father's case, he was more controlling). My mom made me hold her hand crossing the street and keep my hands on the shopping cart until I was 16. I wasn't allowed to wear makeup. I wasn't allowed to have male friends. I wasn't allowed to sleep at a friend's house or go to parties until again I was 16. The only reason I was even allowed to start doing those things at 16 was because I finally went on a rant against my parents about how I was tired of being treated like a little kid. Though even after that I still wasn't allowed to wear makeup or have male friends. I also wasn't allowed to cut my hair because my stepfather thought girls should have long hair and he wouldn't let me learn to drive or get a job.

[–]8kittycatsfluff 0 points1 point  (3 children)

My mom, more than my dad was overprotective of me (I'm the youngest), but not anywhere near to this extent. Both of them died years ago. Are your parents still alive?

[–]kanna172014[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

My bio-father is in prison but he didn't raise me. My mom died in 2003 and my stepfather died six years later. They also failed to make any plans for my brother, who is autistic, other than have me care for him for the rest of his life. And here I am now, almost 41 years old and still taking care of him and still unable to drive.

[–]8kittycatsfluff 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Does your brother live with you? How old is he?

That's really good of you to be taking care of him. I'm sure it isn't easy.

[–]kanna172014[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He'll be 40 in September. And yeah, we do still live together. Unfortunately he can't be left by himself for too long as he can't be trusted around the stove as he's nearly set our kitchen on fire on multiple occasions due to getting distracted easily.

[–]Low-Manufacturer4983 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is 💯 a way of proving their power over you 

[–]Fancy_bakonHair 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My mom did this last week. Thankfully, i just gave her a death stare every time she even touched one of my plushes, but basically, everything else wasn't spared. She said i was just a hoarder. Her new favorite phrase is "it's got to go." she threw away everything possible. It didn't help i cut myself literally a few days before. I really wanted to do it again. She eveb threw away the only things that kept me sane in 7th grade (abunch of doodles), and even the drawings from therapy.

[–]youchosehowiact 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When I was in middle school several relatives told my mom she needed to throw away my snuggle bear that I'd had since I was 3 because it was worn and "falling apart" (it wasn't acctually) and I needed to "grow up" when my oldest nephew (born the same year I graduated high school) turned 16 I passed it down to him and he is now nearly 21 and still has it. He said that when he has kids, he will pass it down to them as well. I'm forever grateful my mom told those relatives to mind their own business because that bear is still very special to me even though it's my nephew's now and he says it's his most prized possession.

[–]No-End3167 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My dad would complain about my possessions, while he had his own stacks of unread Outboard Magazines in the garage as well as dozens of cheap trophies from his expensive time-consuming hobby.

To his credit those are all gone now (or packed away) but it was annoying when I was a teen.