Learning Non-attachment From A 5-year Old

Few days back Reva and I were sitting in Pratyush’s apartment with her greeting cards craft kit. She shared all her nice papers and scissors with me and together we started making trees and stars and hearts for the cards. Sometime later 9 months old Maitri heard Reva’s voice from across the flat and started jumping to be with her. We brought her also into our card making party but as an infant would do, she started folding the papers and putting her in her mouth. My mind was immediately thinking, “Oh! All these papers will get spoilt like this.” So I made Maitri sit a little distance away and gave her one cardboard to play with but when she was bored with that she started reaching for another one and I said “No, Maitri we are going to play with only this one.” Reva responds so beautifully to this, “No no… she likes to play with new things. Give her this and this and this also.” In an instant she put all her little things in front of Maitri to choose and play with not even once thinking that she won’t be able to use them in her cards then.

I love doing crafts and I am very careful with my material but I think in my effort to make the material last longer, I am also a bit too frugal with it especially with little children where I know it might be spoilt. Seeing Reva share everything with Maitri (and also with me), I learnt an important lesson that my frugality might be rooted more in my attachment to that material, which to me is what a toy is to a child. Here is this little 5 year old who is telling me that I can use whichever and how much ever paper I want. And she is also laying out all her cutouts and pictures for little Maitri to play with. I wish I can practice such non-attachment with my toys!