Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott for July 26, 2023

Wanda you’re fighting a losing battel. Zoe’s not giving up her babies.

How about not trying to micromanage every detail of your kid’s lives

What’s the big deal, Wanda? They’re just stuffed toys piled up on Zoe’s bed. They’re not in your way or in your space. She will outgrow them naturally and discard them. Just not on YOUR timetable.

And how did Zoe acquire all them be begin with? Find them, buy them oor did Wanda get them for her.

I was visiting some friends in France and the only spare bedroom they had was their daughter’s, who was grown and living in another city. But her bed still had what seemed like a hundred stuffed animals on it that had to be moved before I could get into it. I heard that she had their first grandchild last year so I suppose that’s why they were saving them.

Congratulations in advance, Wanda!

Let her be Wanda, how is that hurting things to let her keep them?

And then Zoe lost her entire collection of stuffed animals AND the rest of her teeth, in just one evening!

“That’s fine, Zoe, you can keep all of them. But if you want a new one, one of the old ones has to be donated to a homeless shelter or children’s home. You get to choose which one goes to a child who doesn’t have any stuffed toys. "

I genuinely don’t understand what Wanda thinks she’s doing here. There’s no benefit that I can see to having fewer stuffed animals. It just makes Zoe sad. What am I missing that makes this not insane behavior?

Just wait, in a couple of years she’ll be interested in boys…

wait a week and just randomly toss one away

Have Darryl take the kids to the park and while they’re gone, dump the stuffed animals (far from the house). When Zoe returns you can claim they were stuffed-animalknapped.

And if you pull the string, they will happily recite them…

Wanda, remember, when culling the herd, sometimes you just have to get rid of the lead critter.

When my son was a kid we put in a hammock for stuffed toys in the corner above his bed so he could pull one down when he wanted it. He had it there for years and finally took it down. My daughter had a shelf going across her room, under the ceiling, she could stand on her bed to reach them.

I still have all my 30+ stuffed animals from childhood.

Being an absolute nitwit at such things,the few stuffed animals I managed to win at carnival games are still here;no matter how cheap they look compared to “the real thing”.

Give Zoe a break, Wanda.

I still remember Charlie, my stuffed chimp from 60+ years ago ….

This story arc is a re-run.

My daughter will be 34 next week. She still has a small kitty cat I bought when I was pregnant. She slept with it in her crib and until she was probably 9. Most of the time she was holding his tail so it finally fell off, but the tail went into her treasure box.

Plus, he kinda looks like he is in The Cowboy Monkey Band!

I see a Snoopyish stuffie behind Zoe

There is an episode of Bluey IIRC, “Mr Monkeyjocks” that addresses a very similar situation.

I wanna know the backstory of that one with the beady eyes… !

“Just not on YOUR timetable.” <==That’s the big deal.

My daughter had hundreds — mostly small ones — and once she was off to college she was ready to part with most of them. But she still has some of the very special ones — some of which are still here in my apartment. I’ve told her that by the time she’s 30 (next year), she has to reclaim them.

As for the ones she did part with, I donated (with her permission, of course) a lot of them to the thrift store of a church. The holidays were coming up, and they were glad to have them, so we knew we could count on them going to good homes.

I never have thrown away ANY old toy, Wanda. Did you throw yours away?

We bagged up excess toys and kept them for a year. If the kids looked for them they got them back. Otherwise they went to charity.

Why is it so important to purge the stuffed animals?

I had toy soldiers like in Toy Story at that age, played with them all the time until one day they did not talk anymore and ended up in a box in the attic. Then I had my first Matchbox car and I still play with cars, real ones with stick shifts though the daily driver has a 6 speed automatic with a side gate for fun.

I know it’s a comic strip but I think Zoey’s parents may have failed in setting up boundaries on stuffed toy acquisition and possession. On the other hand, this strip may be a sharp social critique on kids being raised to be relentless consumers.

I say just don’t do it at all. Let the flighty whims of the munchkin’s imagination discern when they should go. They have been been huge friends to me, and I developed a whole universe around the search for a lost one from my childhood..

Why does Wanda want so much to do such an evil thing to her daughter? She also has another youngest daughter who could inherit Zoe’s stuffed animals instead of having to buy more!

When I was very little, I had a doll made of oil cloth. I loved that doll. It got a little torn up from my loving it. My mom decided it should be thrown away. so, she took it from me and put it on the dumbwaiter (apartments had those back in the day. The super would ring and tenants would put their garbage on it and it would be disposed of by the super). It was very traumatic for me. Fortunately, I didn’t turn into a serial killer because of that experience.

They are memories Wanda, let her keep them.

I thing there toys are most precious and should be preserved not purged, Wanda. The kids will find peace, tranquility in them when they grow up and experience the ups and downs of life.

Give it a rest, Mom.

Just leave her alone! Unless you’d like her to resent you the rest of your life!