The Bates kids only have a hamper full of indoor toys

[Trynn]

Okay, maybe this is a dumb/weird question, but is this only a problem for fundie families? My mom and sister and I were always such different sizes that we never would have gotten our underwear mixed up, but even if you only had a mom and two daughters who were all similar sizes, it could be an issue (my solution to said issue would be to have everybody do their own laundry).

Sorry if this sounds strange. I started doing my own laundry at eight and my siblings weren't far behind, so communal laundry in general is weird to me.

Granted this was with socks, but my mom's solution was to sew a line of different colored thread into the cuff. It was BARELY noticeable, and possibly only from the inside, but it worked, and it never looked bad or anything. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to do something like this for underwear.

[Jenesis Jexodus]

Lesson of the day: Keep some toys the kids no longer care about in a hamper. They won't play with them and therefore there will be nothing to clean up. They will read instead or play outside. Maybe they'll play a board game. Point is they won't be playing with toys that have to be cleaned up. Just be sure to keep them in a hamper though so you can tell yourself they do have toys.

[IReallyAmHopewell]

Toys are not necessary in this world--chores are. Even Bible-themed toys can be a no-no. The child is here to work as part of a family--not to play. Fun is had in working together as a team to accomplish something for the good of all.

Has no one yet noticed that the only toys in the Duggar home are dolls (so a girl is always used to caring for a baby) product placements from Vision Forum and other companies? There is a pool table and a ping-pong table, but those are for more than one person.

[Conuly]

To tell you the truth, I'm okay with that. Once you clear out the plastic noisy stuff (which isn't very interesting for more than a few minutes) and put the games and outdoor things in a different area (I'm guessing from the quote that they're counting outdoor toys separately, and it's obvious they're not counting board games), you're not left with that many toys in the first place. And in my experience, kids play better with fewer toys - more focused, less fighting. It's backwards from what you'd expect, but that's how it seems to be.

Mind, with several kids I'd probably have three or four hampers and, as suggested, rotate them, but....

[debrand]

Granted this was with socks, but my mom's solution was to sew a line of different colored thread into the cuff. It was BARELY noticeable, and possibly only from the inside, but it worked, and it never looked bad or anything. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to do something like this for underwear.

I have two daughters who are similar in body build to me. We never get our underwear confused, although when my husband folds clothes, he sometimes gives me the girls' underwear. Somehow my daughters and I just know what is ours.

[alba]

While playing with siblings is important for learning to share and work as a team, I do think that there should be opportunities for the kids to explore playing by themselves as well, otherwise they don't learn how to assuage boredom without assistance. If they've got a hamper full of age-inappropriate toys, books and board games, then their only real choice if their siblings don't want to play with them is read or, if they're like my youngest sister (who as the youngest of 4 is used to having built-in playmates), whinge at a sibling until they play with them to shut them up.

Okay, maybe this is a dumb/weird question, but is this only a problem for fundie families? My mom and sister and I were always such different sizes that we never would have gotten our underwear mixed up, but even if you only had a mom and two daughters who were all similar sizes, it could be an issue (my solution to said issue would be to have everybody do their own laundry).

Sorry if this sounds strange. I started doing my own laundry at eight and my siblings weren't far behind, so communal laundry in general is weird to me.

My family has on occasion gotten underwear mixed up (my mum always found it easier to do it herself than try to schedule the laundry room), but that doesn't squick me out like communal underwear, in part because if I find a pair of pants in my drawer that I know isn't mine I give them to the person to whom they do belong, so the chances of actually wearing someone else's underwear are pretty slim. For another thing, it's only ever mixed up between my sister and me, not my mum, and I guess because my sisters and I have shared clothes and bathing suits our whole lives, either as hand-me-downs or borrowed clothes, it's not really weird. There's also the simple fact that my underwear is still 'mine', and I'm not going to accidentally end up in a pair of pants with someone else's period stains, which is a risk with communal underwear that I would not be willing to take.

At any rate, if fundies are so scared of communism, why are they so big on it within their own homes? :P

[dawbs]

Maybe my family was just surprisingly unlucky, but my mom and both my sisters and I had major issues w/ this.

We all basically did our own laundry, but it was always a source of frustration.

(Of course, thread/nametags/whatever only work if people honor them. My sisters were notorious for 1-changing the initial/name to theirs [some letters, it's easy to do that. Imagine changing a "P" to an "R"--you just add a line.] to increase their numbers and 2-just plain taking stuff--hell, I haven't shared a house w/ them for 10 years now and the last time I saw my bigsis her socks said 'dawbs' on the bottom :roll: )

[aelar]

I'm on the 'small amounts of toys, rotated' bandwagon, but we're talking about at least 10 kids still in the toy stage. A single hamper is a pitifully inadequate amount of toys.

I don't think I have a lot of toys for my 6 month old. Two sets of soft blocks, one fabric (great pictures, easy to stack and knock over), one rubber (great texture, great for chewing). Two sets of sorting cups (we could have done with one, but we got two as gifts, and I've noticed she plays with them more if I swap them every couple days). A half dozen rattles (I have a thing about rattles, love to buy them, but I get cool ones that the toddlers we visit find interesting). Three or four 'play objects' animals or cubes that are soft and crunchy and have baby stimulating colors and textures. A dozen fabric pieces of play food and a couple little bins and bags (got them from IKEA, they're sooooo fun). A large playmat and a small one with the arcs that toys can dangle from (it also turns into a tunnel).

That's it, aside from a few stuffed animals people gave us that sit on a shelf. Nothing electronic. Nothing excessive. Yet this small amount of toys would not leave a lot of room in a hamper for toys for any other child. Looking at these toys, though she would likely get bored with them, three-fourths of them would probably be appropriate until she is at least a toddler, half until she is three or four, but very few of them much longer than that. I guess she could still use the play food and some of the animals as babies, but there aren't enough blocks to build anything interesting, or enough objects in general to support a lot of 'pretend play'.

There are no building blocks or legos, or any building toy that requires complex thought and could promote mechanical thinking. There's no dress-up clothes or accessories to promote thinking about different professions. There's no art supplies for encouraging creativity. No musical instruments, no puzzles. Just a few puzzles could quickly take up a small bin, and puzzles are -soooo- age dependent.

I can and will get all of these things for my girl at various developmental ages, and pass along the toys she's outgrown so that we never have more toys than she and I can easily take care of. When I planned her room I planned out her toy storage, and how much there would be, how to organize things so that it didn't get out of control, and didn't have to become a mess, while still making supplies available for all kinds of activities.

I'm a fan of functional play (play in the kitchen with real kitchen things, rather than in a pretend kitchen; play clean with really cleaning supplies, not a toy vacuum) that will cut down on the toys we have, but there are still going to be toys. I started to type that she would just make a mess of things inside making her own toys, playing with kitchen things or leftover boxes, or our computers, but I guess the Bates solve that by kicking their kids outside. But don't they ever let their kids in? Don't they have bad weather?

I guess it's too much trouble and mess to let 19 kids play with legos or make art projects, or lose puzzle pieces all over the house, but that's why sane people don't have so many kids. Outdoor play is great. Reading and board games are great. Forcing them to use their imaginations and make up games and toys out of nothing is fine and good in moderation. But -never- giving your kids enough toys to support well-rounded play at all ages is deprivation. Toys aren't frivolous luxuries, they are the worktools of children.

[Cordial]

This reminds me of an acquaintance of mine with 10+ kids. I was chatting about how my kids are crazy for puzzles, and she said, "You know, my kids were really into puzzles for a while, and I numbered the backs of the pieces as best as I could, but they still kept getting all mismatched. So I just threw them all out one day." Isn't that so sad?

[donks]

Well since my son hit 12, he and his Dad have worn the same size socks. So they have a basket of white sporty socks between them. It's plain old easier to buy all the same style of sock, Hanes in this case, with the red writing at the toe. It makes matching them up a breeze!

My husband does have a separate group of black socks for his job (prison guard, white socks are a no-no there. Gotta fit regulation!)

As for underwear, no. They have their own underwear, kept in drawers in their respective dressers.

[NJMom]

What are the sleeping arrangements for the Bates kids? I think that they don't have all 10 girls in one bedroom and 8 boys in the other..maybe it's 4 bedrooms total for all the kids? If so, why can't the younger children who share rooms have their own toys in their rooms?

[donks]

I think it's all about control with these nuts.

"Nothing belongs to you and you alone, it's all THE FAMILY'S stuff/food/toys/clothes. If you try to leave here, you can take nothing, not even the clothes on your back, because nothing is yours."

[slickcat79]

What are the sleeping arrangements for the Bates kids? I think that they don't have all 10 girls in one bedroom and 8 boys in the other..maybe it's 4 bedrooms total for all the kids? If so, why can't the younger children who share rooms have their own toys in their rooms?

I know that would have been really, really hard in their old house, where they had all the kids basically sleeping on pallets in those sloped-roof rooms in the attic. From their updates about finishing up the house, it looks like they have at least 6 bedrooms for the kids including the nursery, and one of them in particular is really spacious. They don't even have to store clothes in their rooms, so I don't see any reason that they couldn't have a few toys in their own space.

I guess the Bateses also subscribe to the toddlers in a pack-n-play technique...

[lilwriter85]

Re: the underwear thing...way back when the Maxwell's Mom's board was still running and publicly viewable, a mother wrote asking how to handle laundry. Her brilliant idea was that because she and her daughters wore the same size panties, they should just buy some jumbo packs of the white Hanes type, then wash them in hot water (possibly bleach) and have a central location for all to pull from - so basically, the mother and daughters would all share underwear.

Granted, most of the other moms tried to tell her that was a bad idea, but their argument was that her husband (the daughter's father) should not be looking that mom in an "intimate way" while the mom was wearing the daughter's underwear. I don't recall someone saying "crazy lady, kids should have their OWN underwear" but someone might have ...it was a long time ago.

I think that when women have more children than they can handle and when they're drinking koolaid by the gallon, they grasp for anything that will make their lives easier, and I can't say I blame them... although things like birth control, daycare, etc would provide way more help than a central underwear location ever could.

I know a few people who do similar things with underwear in a household. My cousin was married to a woman who had triplets(two girls and one boy) from a previous marriage. Once the girls turned 4, she would buy jumbo packs of underwear and socks and they would share underwear and socks. Another cousin of mine has her two sons share undewear, socks, and even shirts as well.

[liltwinstar]

For some reason, sharing socks seems less disgusting than sharing underwear...and sharing underwear with a sibling seems less disgusting than sharing with a sibling. I'm sure my twin and I got our socks mixed up from time to time when we were kids, which doesn't bother me. Unintentional underwear mix-ups don't bother me (it happens), but the idea of doing that *on purpose* just seems wrong, somehow. Like the kids just don't exist except as an extension of the mother.

And yes, once women hit puberty, they should have their OWN underwear.

[Koala]

These people fucking disgust me. They have kids like their trying to make a damn collection out of them, and then they spend the next 18-20 years treating them like built in servants.

Their bedding is not suitable (because a damn pack and play doesn't = a bed), their wardrobe is forced on them, based on some assbackwards interpretation of the Bible, the food is not adequate or nutritious, education just flat out doesn't happen, the work is never ending, and the parents are nothing but lazy as hell breeders.

And now she wants say that her 18 "blessings" (of varying ages) are supposed to share a measly laundry basket full of toys so her lazy ass doesn't have to clean? Just no.

[keen23]

I have two daughters who are similar in body build to me. We never get our underwear confused, although when my husband folds clothes, he sometimes gives me the girls' underwear. Somehow my daughters and I just know what is ours.

Now I feel like the worst mother in the world. I only have three kids, all girls, all between the ages of 4 and 8. They have an underwear bin in their laundry area, and everything gets tossed into there. It's totally communal. The socks are in another communal bin (my middle child is responsible for matching the sock pairs as part of her chores). Everything gets laundered before it's put away, and I'm sure they'll move out of the communal bins when they get older, but right now, I don't think it's that big of a deal.

[Black Aliss]

According to a recent comment, they share a hamper full of toys. If they get new toys that make the hamper overflow, something gets thrown away. I can almost understand a hamper for one child, but all those little kids with a wide variety of ages?

"Too many toys can be overwhelming! Years ago when Zach was 5, I remember trying to motivate him to clean the mess of toys. Each day in playing, the little ones thought they had to dump every toy out (ignoring most while leaving a discouraging mess!).

Well, of course they empty the hamper out onto the floor. That's what little kids do. A toy chest represents organization only to an adult. It's pretty well understood by most people who pay attention to little kids that a toy chest or hamper represents, to them, utter chaos. Until a certain age (not sure what it is, because my husband isn't quite there yet, but I'd guess typically it's school-age) children need to see each item as separate and distinct before they can identify them and decide which one they want to play with. It works so much better to have shallow shelves along a wall where each toy can be seen.

[Austin]

INow I feel like the worst mother in the world. I only have three kids, all girls, all between the ages of 4 and 8. They have an underwear bin in their laundry area, and everything gets tossed into there. It's totally communal. The socks are in another communal bin (my middle child is responsible for matching the sock pairs as part of her chores). Everything gets laundered before it's put away, and I'm sure they'll move out of the communal bins when they get older, but right now, I don't think it's that big of a deal.

Let me join you in the worst mother line. This is how we do things at our house to this day. The clothes are clean so I guess I don't get the problem. If any of my guys cared, they could always start doing their own laundry. :D

[Feberin]

I like the idea of encouraging outdoor play and reading. I feel like a hamper seems to small for that many children but I think a lot of it depends on the toys that are included in the hamper and what isn't included since obviously books, outdoor toys and board games aren't part of it. If there were some other toys such as a kitchen set, blocks and such that weren't included and the hamper was just the noisy plastic toys then I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it.

[Jenesis Jexodus]

These people fucking disgust me. They have kids like their trying to make a damn collection out of them, and then they spend the next 18-20 years treating them like built in servants.

Their bedding is not suitable (because a damn pack and play doesn't = a bed), their wardrobe is forced on them, based on some assbackwards interpretation of the Bible, the food is not adequate or nutritious, education just flat out doesn't happen, the work is never ending, and the parents are nothing but lazy as hell breeders.

And now she wants say that her 18 "blessings" (of varying ages) are supposed to share a measly laundry basket full of toys so her lazy ass doesn't have to clean? Just no.

Why don't you say what you really mean. ;)

[lilwriter85]

For some reason, sharing socks seems less disgusting than sharing underwear...and sharing underwear with a sibling seems less disgusting than sharing with a sibling. I'm sure my twin and I got our socks mixed up from time to time when we were kids, which doesn't bother me. Unintentional underwear mix-ups don't bother me (it happens), but the idea of doing that *on purpose* just seems wrong, somehow. Like the kids just don't exist except as an extension of the mother.

And yes, once women hit puberty, they should have their OWN underwear.

I agree with this. My cousin's ex-stepdaughters who I mentioned in a previous post did start having their own underwear when they were 10 or 11. My cousin's ex-wife mostly had them socks and underwear when they were younger to deal laundry.

[EmmieJ]

I grew up with seven siblings, five of them sisters. Two of my sisters were in close age range to me. I'll be honest and say I do not recall whether we had communal underwear or not. Perhaps so, being that for some years, we probably wore the same size underwear. However, we did not share clothes. I am absolutely positive that once we hit age 11 or so, we had our own underwear and in fact, my mom would let us pick out which packet of cotton undewear we wanted at the store. My two sisters and I had different taste and so it was easy to know whose underwear was whose after that. When we were 12 or so, we were given a clothing allowance each month. We could buy whatever we wanted with it, within reason (nothing inappropriate). I started buying my own bras and panties at that point and that was that.

We had a giant toy box (it was really this big bench seat my dad made, with a hinged seat that lifted up) that was located in what we called the play room. It was a big room that had an old couch, a couple of old comfy chairs, and this big old wood bench/toy box in it. It was filled with play clothes, toys, etc. I'm sure we made a mess at times, but before bedtime, it was our job to go to the playroom and throw everything back into the box. Not a big deal. Toys were limited only in the sense that my parents had 8 mouths to feed and so they weren't buying us lots of toys all the time.

[donks]

My son is an only child. We overbought/over indulged him, toy-wise. Why not? He's the only one we ever wanted, the only one we ever had. We did everything humanly possible to give him a happy childhood:

Ponies, dirt bike, go-cart, a boat, camp in the summer, name brand clothes, a truck when he got old enough. Friends could come and stay whenever they wanted to (and they still do, even though they are 'grown' now). He played sports for the school, the youth league and the church. I ferried him and friends all over and we had a ball doing it! He excelled in wrestling especially. BMX raced from the time he was 3, placing in state. He attended several school proms, 2 of his own, 3 or 4 with girls from other schools. Graduated HS. He's looking at the military for a career, now, instead of going straight to college. His choice.

I am extremely proud of him and his accomplishments.

I feel sorry for these mega-family kids. They have no individual belongings to call their own. No room of their own. Nothing. It's just sad.

[IReallyAmHopewell]

What are the sleeping arrangements for the Bates kids? I think that they don't have all 10 girls in one bedroom and 8 boys in the other..maybe it's 4 bedrooms total for all the kids? If so, why can't the younger children who share rooms have their own toys in their rooms?

IIRC Michaela has a room with a toddler or two and so does Erin. Zach may have a room, but the boys have the 3rd story as their room--not sure if it's a big "dormitory" or if it's divided into rooms.