The Real Reason We Tell Kids Not to Waste the Art Supplies
It was never really about the tape. When we say save some for later, what we mean is: I need to manage this. I need to make sure something worthwhile comes out of this.
My book But I’m Bored is available now.
I wrote the blog post as a mom to a ten-year-old, an eight-year-old, and a five-year-old. I’m writing this Substack post now with an eighteen-year-old, a sixteen-year-old, and a thirteen-year-old, and as someone who would give anything to have one more afternoon with those littles…
Last week, someone messaged me asking how to deal with waste. “My kids will use an entire roll of tape, etc.”
And suddenly, this newsletter came pouring out of me.
It was 2018, and the rainbow masking tapes were sitting on a shelf in my art pantry, crying out for a turn at the table. So I rolled out my favorite white butcher paper, slapped on some stripes in rainbow order, added a few crayons, and waited to see what would transpire when my three kids came barreling up the driveway, backpacks and jackets abandoned in the front hallway, and wet boots trailing right into my kitchen.
At my behest, they’d reluctantly speedwash their hands at the kitchen sink, leaving greyish- black bubbles in the sink from their grubby little hands.
Hands still damp, they’d clamor over to the kitchen table to see what I’d put out for a snack, all talking over one another, vying for a turn to be heard.
I was sure they’d burst with excitement at the warm cookies and the bright, fresh rolls of rainbow tape and crayons.
You know what? Nothing happened. They ate their cookies and then ran out front to ride scooters with friends, even my little one, who trailed behind the big kids, never fast enough to keep up, but always willing to try.
Not a mark was made on that paper. The tape sat untouched.
Was I disappointed? Not at all.
Whenever I set up an art or play invitation for the kids, it was their choice to engage or not. As a rule for myself, I kept it simple because I didn’t want to feel resentment if they weren’t interested.
My mantra on art projects: Keep your investment light. Offer without needing it to land.
Fast forward to the next morning.
My youngest, Sloane, about five at the time, noticed the tape and crayons and got right in there. My middle child, Ruby, saw Sloane, and then she, of course, needed to be a part of the action. They chattered and taped.
Then came the squeal…“I have a GREAT idea!”
Sloane grabbed her Jumbo Animals from the playroom behind her and started dressing them up with tape. She wrapped the long-necked giraffe with thick stripes of purple. Fat red strips of tape wrapped around its legs as knee-high socks.
Ruby, smiling slyly, pulled out the large plastic elephant. She bejelweled its outstretched trunk with small slivers of pink tape. She made some carrots for it to eat out of the orange and green tape.
The art project became a game, and it went on until it was time to get dressed and leave for a Saturday morning trip to the diner for pancakes and chocolate milk.
I left everything on the table when we walked out the door. I had a feeling there was more in store for the vibrant rainbow tape that had been crying out to me from the pantry…
The tape clothes for the animals became a game/ art activity that went on for nearly the entire week ahead.
When I wrote about that morning ten years ago, I called it “A New Way to Think About Wasting Art Supplies.”
But sitting here now, I realize I wasn’t really writing about art supplies at all.
I was writing about the hardest thing I know how to do as a parent. Set something up. Let go of the outcome. Offer without controlling what happens next.
And I was writing about something else important. The impulse that lives within most of us, not to “waste the art supplies.”
Many adults would want to resource guard the tape. Don’t waste the art supplies. Only use a little bit. Save some for later.
I understand that impulse. Art supplies feel precious. A full roll of tape feels like potential. Using it up feels like losing something.
When I was a little girl, maybe six, I accompanied my mom and two of my sisters to my dad’s office. While the adults talked behind a closed door, the little gang of sisters tiptoed around the office playing hide and seek. I opened the door to a tiny closet, where I hid in the dark. It smelled weird in there, I had to pee, and I was really worried we would get in trouble for fooling around at the office where we were meant to sit politely and quietly and make our parents look good.
But when my big sister opened the door, and the automatic light switched on? OMG, it was everything. As my eyes adjusted to the light and my heart stopped pounding from thinking it was anyone other than my sister, we saw rolls and rolls of calculator paper, reams of copy paper, boxes and boxes of miniature pencils, and the piece de resistance? Boxes of white pencils that weren’t pencils at all. They were long eraser sticks, and they had a bright blue broom-like contraption on the end to wipe away the rubber crumbs from all the erasing. I had never seen so many “art supplies” in my life.
And I honestly have no idea what made me think of that or why I am sharing it other than it feels important to remember being little, and how exciting the possibilities of art supplies feel.
But the scarcity mindset around art supplies, I know now, was never really about the tape. It’s about control. When we say save some for later, what we mean is: I need to manage this. I need to make sure something worthwhile comes out of this before I can feel okay about it.
And that need to manage is exactly the thing that can get between kids and real creative experiences that they can make their own, without needing approval from anyone else.
So I asked it then, and I’m asking it now: Is it a waste if your child is learning? Is it a waste if your child is exercising her fine motor skills? Is it a waste to allow your child to express her mind and feel the joy in creating?
It’s not. It never was.
The tape is replaceable. A roll of rainbow masking tape costs a few dollars. The morning your daughter spends completely absorbed in the sensation of unspooling it, the morning she squeals about a great idea and makes her Jumbo Animals get dressed up… that morning is not replaceable.
It’s okay to let her use the tape. It is okay to run out of tape and have to improvise with something else.
Sloane and Ruby are older now. The Jumbo Animals live on a shelf in my office. The art supply pantry is still stocked, but a little lonelier than it used to be. Nobody is squealing about great ideas involving masking tape and jumbo animals anymore.
And what I know now, from this side of it, is that all those mornings mattered. The ones where they dove in and made a huge mess. The ones where they ran outside and didn’t touch a thing. The ones where the tape got used up completely.
They mattered because of what I was showing them, over and over, without even realizing it:
That their ideas are worth using the good tape on.
That creativity doesn’t need to be rationed.
That the people who love them will keep setting out the supplies, even on the days nothing gets made.
That’s not an art lesson.
If I could go back, I’d buy the tape again. Every time.
How do you feel about “wasting” art supplies? Let me know in the comments below. I answer every single one. x. Lizzie
If this post resonated with you, don’t miss the ones below:
Grounded in Play: The Childhood Secret Adults Are Desperate to Rediscover
You Don’t Have to Play With Your Kids Every Time They Ask
Two Things I Did When My Kids Were Little That Are Paying Off Now
