Putting the art in cart

Getting curious about giving / giving in / giving up

After 10 years of policing “the good scissors,” I’ve finally given up the fight: I’m allowing the kids to use some of my nicer art supplies… without having to ask first. This surrender has felt like a win-win, and I think it’s due to viewing what was initially an annoyance with curiosity instead of resentment and resignation.

To some extent, there’s sort of a who-cares mentality about many things in motherhood, right? After you’ve had a doctor’s fist all up in your business, you’ve lost all sense of personal space. After years of spit-up and dried-up baby food on your clothes, it’s relatively easy to brush off the aggravation of kids ruining your nice pens. (At least they are doing art, right?)

Yes, the boundaries become more fluid when you have kids, but I always drew the line at my “good art supplies”: the Tombow brush pens, Staedtler colored pencils and pens, Pilot Precise V5 pens, and Grumbacher watercolor brushes remain in my desk drawer, for my use only.

I also tucked away a pair of good scissors and decent Scotch tape so I’d have them when I needed them. But as the kids got more crafty (pun intended), I wasn’t able to curb their sneaking—even though I’d recently graduated them to the same quality of scissors and tape I use… and left them out for their use.

I tried leaving a tape dispenser and a pair scissors on all three floors of the house; I tried assigning each of them their own set and still they came after mine.

To be honest, though, what bothered me more than our kids using and/or losing my tools was that I would constantly find my desk drawers LEFT OPEN like I had raised savages¹. Like, SERIOUSLY, go ahead and take all my good stuff; at least have the decency to close the dang drawer so I don’t have to be not only reminded that I’ve been robbed, but also left with the task of closing a drawer I DID NOT OPEN².

Not wanting to admit defeat, I used the oldest trick in the book: reverse psychology.

I wondered if there would be less friction if my scissors and tape weren’t hidden like some forbidden bar of chocolate (72% cacao). So, I put my scissors and tape—and the other scissors and tape dispensers I could find in the house—on the art cart, which had heretofore been used only to store My Piles from my desk (IYKYK).

Had my kids been hoarding and hiding scissors and tape in their rooms as though they were bars of 100 Grand? Maybe.

Did they start returning the aforementioned supplies when I made their home an easy, open container? Surprisingly, mostly, yes, they did.

Did I now find my desk drawers left open less frequently? Definitely.

What started as an experiment ended up as a much happier arrangement for everyone. I find my desk drawer left open less often, and it’s easier—even for me—to put away a left-out dispenser of tape.

The answer to problems isn’t always to give—whether you’re giving in, or sharing what extras you have—but in this case, it kind of was a combination of those things. Sharing is caring, unless we’re talking 72% Ghirardelli bars or potato chips.

P.S. Hat tip to

Leslie A. Banks

for introducing me to the art caddy, which has worked really well on the top rack of the art cart to add vertical storage and combat pile formation. Look for this $5 find at Target during back-to-school season. The tall middle allows you to fit notebooks, tablets, or a ream of printer paper.

Meet me in the comments!

Do you have a pain point you need help troubleshooting? Or, is there a counterintuitive solution you’ve implemented lately that’s led to some surprising results? I’d love to hear about it!

1. I jest, for I am a butterfly amongst butterflies. But. For a very good take on people who leave cabinet doors open after using them, “just in case”—as well as exemplary footnote employment—see Phoebe Robinson’s Please Don’t Sit On My Bed In Your Outside Clothes.

2. Plus the mental labor of wondering whose job it is to teach our kids to clean up after themselves.