Nothing here is yours

Do you ever get tired of listening to your child saying “It´s mine”? I do. There is little we can do to fight this annoying phrase. We can have situations that will inspire sharing, we will teach our kids to ask for things before they use it and so on. But the “It´s mine” can never get out of our way.

Or can it?

I often wonder how the amount of possessions we have helps to screw up the minds of our beloved children. They arrive in a world where everything in their house belongs to their family and so much of what they want to have, they have to own.

I feel sorry when I go to parks and see parents so nervous about their children´s toys and the toys that they are using without permission, or without wanting to give it back. The way some parents stress: “This is not yours”. “This is hers”. “Play with yours”.

No wonder we are perpetuating the individualistic society we live in. How can we change this?

Travelling with a back pack – can this help?

Now that I´m all set to go on a extended trip with only one back pack (ok, maybe an extra little one) and a guitar, I simply love the feeling of not caring about so much stuff starting tomorrow. And I love thinking that Luísa will own so little with me. Will this help her drop the “It´s mine”?

Well, “It´s mine” also refers to “I want it” or even “I like it” for young children, so I guess it´s impossible to get rid of it all together. But when she is pissing me off with the “It´s mine” mantra these days, I think to myself (with an evil smile): “Let´s see what will be yours in a few weeks! UHA HA HA HA HA HA (in my mind I pull a witch laugh).

My wishes for this trip about owning stuff

I envision us in our new beach town, in our little rented house, maybe we even share the house. We don´t own nothing about the house and Luísa has only a few toys, what makes her want to be more outside with the neighbors or just exploring, playing with whatever she has handy. I don´t worry about stuff´s maintenance, cleaning and putting things away.

Luísa can pick up her few toys quickly, she never needs to ask me where anything is, because everything is so easy to see and notice.

We spend more time outside, strolling around, making friends and enjoying the nature. When we come back home, we only seek for that cozy environment that really doesn´t need many things to be like that.

I´m  happy that Luísa and I will be away from our stuff. That we will unplug from our stuff. This makes me nervous too, but since there is no way back (the house is rented and we live tomorrow morning), I kick the nervousness to the side and keep the reasons to think it´s going to be really awesome.

I stick to my belief that I´ll see a change in our way to relate to things, simply because we won´t own that much.

We will be trading possessions for experiences. We will have fewer things, but I suppose more fun.

I´m really excited to go. Tomorrow we fly to São Paulo, where we will spend 10 days seeing family and friends and then we go to San José, from where my plans are a bit vague right now