Infernal Artwork

What to Do with the Piles of Precious Creations

The women who guide my son through preschool are more evolved human beings than I am. They have unlimited capacity for appreciating his every tiny accomplishment, every endearing utterance, every minor scribbling, and random stroke of a glue stick.

They send home stick sculptures and pudding paintings, stencil sketches, and piles of scraps that he spent the morning snipping with safety scissors.

I make the requisite fuss at pick-up: "Wow! Look what you did! You've been busy! What a cool ... submarine-dog?" But stumbling to the car, arms full, I begin to panic. Where is all this delightful-evidence-of-self-expression supposed to GO?

I resent the mountain of masterpieces that amasses on my kitchen counter daily; there, I said it. Since sentimentality breeds clutter, I've tried approaching the problem with pure pragmatism, but it taught me this: The saddest eight words in the English language are "Mommy, why is my drawing in the trash?"

It's true. I'm going to hell. But I won't be alone.

"We have a daughter who is prolific," Northern California mom Kat McDonald told me. "Anything left behind in the car I throw away. I usually have to shred it because our daughter will cull the trash."

Some moms toss the stuff when the kids are on vacation. Jennifer Untermeyer of Colorado does it after they've gone to bed. "I feel a tiny bit guilty," she said, "but it passes after a glass of wine."

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