When his collection obsession is
cramping your style and your baby’s
Our baby is only 5 months old, but our
apartment was crammed with toys long before my husband and I ever thought about
having kids.
No framed portraits of us in crisp,
matching shirts adorned our mantle. Instead, a lifelike bust of Caesar from
Planet of the Apes engaged our visitors with his simian stare. While we ate our
meals, the Bionic Man and Bionic Woman action figures hovered nearby, standing
side-by-side in disco-era solidarity with Donny and Marie dolls.
Baby
with swap and go snail
My husband’s toy collection ensures his
1970s boyhood is never far away. His endearingly quirky sentimentality and
passion for pop culture were among the things that made me fall in love with
him. But somewhere around my third trimester, the visions began—I imagined
being suffocated beneath stacks of vintage DVDs of The Muppet Show or conked on
the head by the original Snoopy Sno- Cone Machine. Baby shower loot rolled in,
competing for space. Our apartment started looking like it could be featured on
the show Hoarders.
Toy
room
It’s hard to ask someone to throw away
cherished memories just to make room for Boudreaux’s Butt Paste and packs of
diapers. Instead, we opted for what would be the first of many parental
compromises: My husband combed through his collections, getting rid of things
that held less meaning. He displays the good stuff and keeps the memorabilia
B-team in a storage unit.
Despite his efforts though, I became
increasingly claustrophobic as my baby grew inside me. As our baby’s things
began crowding out our adult—and not-so-adult—belongings, I realized I needed
to make a compromise of my own. After years of not wanting to deal with the
hassle of moving and leave our impractically small San Francisco apartment, we
decided to move into a bigger place in a less expensive city. My commute is
longer, but one of my biggest joys is coming home to see my husband and
daughter listening to vintage records with both his and her toys within reach.
