Any minimalist parents out there?

I’m with you on number 1, completely. I’m a messy person so not so much on number 2 and I also don’t consider it to be part of minimalism.

I’m not a parent yet, but I believe my solution to number two will be one of compromise: the main part of the house stays tidy, but the childrens’ rooms are their havens to do with as they please. Provided they keep their bedroom doors closed, the kids are really only affecting themselves with their mess or clutter. As for the main part of the house, I may follow in my grandmother’s footsteps (though, only if things get really bad). Her solution for keeping things tidy was to confiscate anything left lying about. She was overly harsh and authoritarian about it, but I think the idea has some merit if it is executed with gentleness and grace.

I’m so minimalist that I don’t even have the kids.

(But if I did I’d probably be very minimalist. Waldorf Education appeals to me, but I would probably homeschool)

@Simone_De_Beauvoir: ”...and I also don’t consider it to be part of minimalism.”

I’m not sure what it’s called? Neurotic cleanliness?
I know I am not going to achieve this, but I would love to come closer to something like that. I can’t explain it other than I feel at ease when there are clean lines, basic necessities, and lack of clutter. Probably just a clean freak, but can’t for the life of me figure out how to simultaneously encourage free play and artistic creativity while keeping my environment free from crap.

A friend of mine came from a family of 7 children. I am actually friends with all of them. The mother ran a very clean household. She threw out any toys after a few days, and the kids rooms were not child-like at all, they were like adults rooms. They saved no artwork from school, no greeting cards they’d received, nothing. I feel like my friend and her sibs have nothing from their childhood. No toy that was their favorite, no artwork, no cards that people sent them. It’s great being clean and efficient, but be careful you don’t become too much of a clutter-cleaner!

@jca – good point. That’s part of my struggle. I think this whole question is really just stupid and I regret asking it. I probably asked it in a fit because there were legos all over every counter surface in the kitchen, and I sat on a cereal box trebuchet when I sat on the couch.
I value my kids’ creativity more than anything, but my eyes and nerves hurt often from the chaos that I am surrounded by. I will have to suck it up until they are in college.

I have a small house, too, and we have a lot of stuff, because I have a four year old. What I try to do is buy plastic containers (shoe box size) and keep her stuff organized in those things. I find she has all kinds of little plastic things, like McDonald’s toys, and all the dolls and things come with little hair brushes, shoes, and accessories. I try to keep the stuff organized in the containers, so that it’s not scattered all over the house, and also so we keep it together and not lose it. You know with kids they’re constantly outgrowing their clothes, so I put them in containers and give them away or put them in the attic.

I’m not really a minimalist, but I do like to keep things clean and organized. I have a 9-year-old and a 1-month-old. My older son has a lot of toys, mostly Legos and Star Wars stuff. For us, it’s easiest for him to have his space for his toys, especially with the baby now since he’ll be crawling and getting into everything soon enough. He has to keep his toys in his room (except on special occasions when I let him play with them in other rooms). If he brings any of his toys out of his room, he knows he has to put them back in his room once he’s done playing with them. It took a little while to get him into that routine, but now he is really good about doing it on his own. I don’t mind the Legos being in his room since that’s his playing space and he plays with them daily and by letting him have his space for playing, I don’t find Legos all over the rest of the house. He only has to pick up the Legos in his room when I need to vacuum his floor or if we have company coming over.

As for organizing his toys in his room, he has several totes and bins that are dedicated for particular toys. For example, he has 3 totes that are just for his Legos, a bin for his Matchbox cars, a bin for Transformers, a bin for Star Wars stuff, etc. It works really well for him because he can always find what he wants to play with instead of digging through one big toy box (which is what we use to have and it caused a huge mess as he would pull things out looking for one particular thing).

We had a playroom, and all the toys had to stay in that room. In my current house, I wouldn’t have room for that (they’re older now, and don’t need one anyway), so I’d go with the ‘toys in the bedroom’ plan. Not that I’m neat or a minimalist, I just didn’t want toys everywhere.

In the playroom (or in their rooms), have a lot of like containers to store the toys in. You could try the ‘put one thing away before going on to play with another’ system, but I definitely don’t promise that this will work.

I’m with you and @Simone_De_Beauvoir as I try not to be consumerist and I do buy a lot of stuff second hand. I put a lot of stuff in our loft and when it comes back down, most of it goes to charity (thrift) shops but I let the kids look through and choose, say, three things that they want to keep. I quite often use that technique – letting them choose a limited number of things. Helps them focus. They can change their mind but have to swap with something else.

i try to keep their clutter to their bedrooms – I’ll move stuff from around the house to their rooms but I end up having to clear up their rooms with them a lot. When the stuff is neat and tidy, they play more rather than asking to watch TV.