I agree with one of the responses - the one and only reason her kids stopped complaining is because she's trained them to know that she cannot EVER be trusted. They're bewildered right now, and scared of her, but they're going to be angry and in the end, they're going to abandon her completely. ...///... Hopefully they won't be so damaged by this abuse that they can't rebel. If anyone deserved to lose custody of her children, this person is the one.

My mother threw away all of my toys one day while I was at school, at around age 8 or 9, because I couldn't keep my room clean to her standards. She also cut off all my hair because she didn't like dealing with the tangles. I'm still scarred by both things. IMHO, the woman in this story is selfish and bordering on some kind of mental illness. She seems like someone who should not have had children. I do not have children because I feared becoming like my mother. And yes, I've been to therapy, but I don't think there's enough therapy in the world to heal some scars, so I felt it best to remain childless. All the money she's saving on toys should be saved for therapy bills for the kids, because believe me, they're going to need it.

So she doesn't want to clean up after the kids and she doesn't want them to ask for anything, and she doesn't want to parent them to help them manage their wants, needs or expectations. Wish we could swoop in and take ALL her stuff away, her phone, her tablet, her TV, her computer, her microwave, her car keys, her car, her books, her magazines, everything. See how she reacts. Those poor kids.

So why did she have kids if she wants to act like they do not exist?

I'm what is laughingly called a 'first pancake' kid. My siblings are 19 and 22 years younger than me. One thing I will give my Mom is that she definitely learned from the mistakes she made with me. There was a lot of not good that went on (my stepfather was abusive, Mom buried herself in the church) which lead up to this incident, but this was the final straw. When I was 14 I spent the weekend at a friend's house. My mom took the opportunity to change everything about my room she hated. When I came home Sunday night everything that had been in my room was a charred pile of ash in the back yard. My books, my clothes, my furniture, my blankets, my toys, my surfboard... everything. She had replaced it all with white wicker furniture, purple paisley sheets/ comforter, girly clothes she loved (I was definitely a tomboy), basically I came home to a room full of stuff I hated and a pile of ashes of everything I loved. I started running away shortly after and eventually moved out and didn't speak to her for almost a decade. We eventually worked things out, after many long conversations and a lot of apologies and forgiveness on both sides. She said the main thing she learned was that kids need to have the right to say no. That constantly forcing them into situations with no control is the best way to create a kid that is angry, rebellious, and everything they are trying to prevent in the first place. She gave my siblings the ability to say no and have it respected. And she realized that clothes are just clothes, they don't automatically mean your kids is a hooligan if they like ripped jeans and flannels.

"In her article, she says she got ‘fed up’ of cleaning and re-arranging all the playthings that her 6 and 3-year-old children own" . This is the bit that stands out. What mother hasn't at some time but it takes a really lazy, selfish woman to react the way she did.

Why doesn't she try taking away coffee/ smoking/ alcohol/ internet from an adult and see how that goes?

That s**t with "I'll go in and 'tidy' my kids' rooms while they're away teehee" where they go in and throw out anything that looks like trash is SO BAD. My childhood best friend had that happen a few times and she was always completely devastated because there was always a ton of artwork and drawings that would mysteriously vanish. Let your kids have their own belongings, and let them do what they want with those belongings. Teach cleanliness and organization through daily activities - NOT chores. Kids are messy, they're supposed to be messy, and if you don't want that then you shouldn't have kids (or pets). I was still playing with things like Tinkertoys and Toobers & Zots and my Star Wars and dinosaur figures up through age 12, and making things like saddles and reins for Beanie Babies so the action figures could ride them into battle. These two poor kids are going to be so f****d up from this, and if they recover, the relationship with their mom is probably toast.

How to make your kids into hoarders step one.

While I do agree that excessive amount of toys may cause distraction and shorten focus span (there have been some studies on that), depriving children of all of their toys is not the way to go about it. If you really think that your child would benefit from a toy declutter, it should be done with the child's consent. I remember my mum explained to me that there are children in need out there, who would be really happy to get toys of their own. And from then on we would donate a part of my toys every year around Christmas time. But ultimately it was my decision - I was choosing between the toys I wanted to give away and those that I didn't, and I felt happy to be able to help. Perhaps this would be a better way to sort this out.

This story reminds me of a blogger, housewife, homemaker kind of woman who was renovating her home and shoved her six kids into two bedrooms where these kids had no privacy while she used the other four rooms for her work station, craft room, sewing room, and homeschool room. I am against consumerism and wasteful spending, but people kind of forget that children need privacy, independence, and personal possessions so that they can develop into independent decision makers.

I get my kids to tidy up at the end of the day. Their rooms aren't perfect but its tidy enough that they wont play when they're supposed to be sleeping. Big toys on the shelves, cars in the toy box, crafts in the craft drawer etc. And every few months the kids go through their toys and choose some things they would like to donate to others less fortunate. When i take the kids out they get $5 to spend each which usually goes to buying a new car/doll/collectible. Or they can save it to buy something better next time. (On a heart-warming note, my son had been saving for some awesome LEGO thing but when he found out we were short on money he offered his &50 to help out. I told him he earned it and we would find another way. He told my mum and she offered to help. He got his LEGO.)

I predict a few things. There is going to be some serious therapy needed for these kids. The way this mom handled the situation by throwing out all of their toys means that they will never trust her with intimate parts of their lives because mommy is so heartless. The kids will grow up to be hoarders because they will not want to let go of anything they manage to get. They will be OCD from years of being forced to keep their rooms cleaner than a hospital instead of getting messy like normal kids. Her kids are going to be picked on in school because they won't know how to play with toys or will be afraid to play with toys. They will fall behind academically. And they will have a hard time connecting with others because toys are more about social interaction than entertainment. Oh..and I predict a divorce soon for her.

Omfg.. someone said it. When I was about 11 or so my parents would constantly suggest that I should give away some of my toys just because I had "too many". Toys are supposed to help inspire creativity and stuff like that - even I'll admit that I still like playing with toys and collecting them today and it often helps me with the stories I write.

She didn't break the kids "addiction", she broke the kids

While my mom did quite a bit of decluttering with my toys, she NEVER did it to this extent. I can understand donating some of the extra toys, but ALL of them!? For god's sake, let the kids be kids.

I love moms that declutter, because then I buy their toys with a thousand pieces at the thrift store. I can't afford to buy them all new, buy them used and it doesn't matter if the kids don't really like the play with the once, etc. just last night we trashed the house building a Rube Goldberg machine using blocks, dominoes, cars, marbles and cardboard tubes from aluminum foil and toilet paper.

There's a happy medium between living in a home filled with crappy plastic toy bits and destroyed barbies and 100 stuffies, and turning your home into prison. Books, art supplies, toys that encourage building and roll play are great. The mother did not give her children the gift of self-discipline achieved by teaching emotional moderation and delayed gratification, but punished them by stripping them of the power to control their environment and their own feelings. Good luck when they hit puberty.

This mother is a real psycho. Poor kids...

This is terrifying. These children will either become mass murderers or hoarders, or both. My brother bought me the Eloise books. We went home with them, and my mother was furious that he spent his money on me, and made him take them back. I really never got over that. I finally got them as an adult, and have over compensated with our child, buying her far too much. As for her husband, he should be ashamed of himself.

My daughter was 4 when her father (my ex) threw bunch of her toys away for not picking them up when she was visiting him. The next day I took her to daycare and she full out punched another child for taking a doll away from her. She was afraid to respond to him so she took it out on someone her own size.

She may have gone too far in reading about minimalism and Marie Kondo, and misunderstood the messages there. This is just cruel.

Hey, I’m only thirteen, but listen. I feel horrible for your kids. This just teaches them that nothing they own is safe. That if they do anything wrong that their mother is going to take away something they find a comfort. They won’t ask for anything because they’ll feel like you’ll just take away what they already have. “I finally gave up and took it all away. I wasn’t angry, just fed up. I calmly began packing up not just a toy or two, but every single thing. All their dress-up clothes, baby dolls, Polly Pockets, & stuffed animals, all their Barbies, building blocks, and toy trains, right down to the the furniture from their dollhouse and play food from their kitchen. I even took the pretty Pottery Barn Kids comforter from their bed.” Do you literally have any idea how evil this sounds? At all? I don’t care how ‘fed up’ you are. You are the parent. The adult. Your children’s feelings- surprise- matter more than yours when your kids are only around three and six.

B***h, kids are getting addicted to porn and racist memes these days. You should be f*****g thankful that your kids are into toys. This is a good way to get your kids to despise you and start to lie, cheat, and sneak behind your back. The damage has already been done. Now all you can do is pray they don't dump you in the s****y nursing home when you're older :)

A case of "Mommy dearest". Children are emotionally attached to their toys. The stupid mother hurt them and gave them some issues-- may I hope this mother is a fake?

If my parents had thrown MY toys away, they'd better hope they never have to move in with me when they're old because there's an excellent chance their treasured things would have ended up in the garbage in retaliation.

To be honest, I hope this "no toys" b******t bites that "mother" in the butt super hard. Not kids becoming drugged murderers but something super severe.

I had an obsession with thomas the train as a toddler. Is it an ADDICTION that I played with my train tracks? (plus these kids are 3 yrs old and 6 yrs old, they need something to play with)

This happened several years ago. The mother in question has a well known blog and because of this uproar, is more popular than ever.

Maybe I wasn't the best mother, but my children were brought up without TV until they were 11, 9, and 7 and we moved to another country and lived in a flat, their toys were mostly Legos, and trucks, and outside toys, I refused to buy them guns or swords, but didn't mind that they made them, and in this I think we made the right decision, they became very creative, you can't imagine how much came out from their imagination, cities, swords, table games like monopoly, but having Vikings as main actors, they investigated, created a map of Europe, the ports and rivers where they attacked, created the money, defenses, Fascinating what they can do with their time if it's raining or snowing and cant go out. Today as grown ups are so resourceful, and all three think is because of that, after that, TV, didn't fill their life it was part of it as many other things. Maybe that mother went too far, but I understand her, today I find so many obnoxious childs, and parents that don't put limits.....

My daughter is 11 and no longer plays with her toys but told me she she isn't ready to part with them. So, I will hold on to them. They will stay in the bins under het bed, until she is ready. I have things I can't part with yet, why can't she? Kids are people, they have feelings, expressions, wants, and needs. I don't even agree with the statement about going to the park not being their choice. We have season passes to the local theme park. Some weekends, she'll ask if we can go, I say sure, we spend the whole time riding what she wants.

She just told them to clean up, left them to tidy up, without supervision, and expected them to be, what, sitting quietly with their hands in their laps, and all their toys put away? A three and a six year old, even should they obey and remove those toys from the floor, are going to move right into another activity, more toys, more "untidiness". I read the article. At 3 and 6, the chances of getting your children to pick up after themselves without your direct supervision are pretty low. She seems awfully smug about how easily her children adapted to HER obsession with their stuff. Now that they have to plead for the toys in the attic, which may only be exchanged for the toys they currently have in their room, of course they are super careful, and play all day with what they have. They don't have the ownership of these toys, they have to rely on maybe being able to "borrow" a few for a while, and if they ask too often, or enjoy them too much, they won't even have that.

This woman obviously knows nothing about child development. She should be reported to Child Protective Services for abuse and neglect.

Being cruel to your child makes you a terrific parent? Yeah, dream on. It will only make you a lonely senior citizen because your children are going to be cruel to you when they've finally escaped you.

"Tumblr users decided to explain" Dont let Tumblr users explain ANYTHING period!

I think it's funny that this is somehow "viral" or relevant. The original article is from 2013...