A MUM has revealed she bans other children from playing with her kids’ toys as it’s ‘theft’, and rejects the idea that ‘sharing is caring’.
Laura Mazza, 33, regularly shares the reality of parenting on her Instagram, and revealed why she teaches her kids to say ‘no’.
Laura is mum to Luca, six, Sofia, four, and two-year-old James, and explained her daughter is ‘on the spectrum’.
The mum, from Melbourne, revealed her little girl is attached to two things – her blanket and sensory toy ‘mousey’.
She recalled an incident in the park when two kids wanted to play with mousey, and took it off Sofia – prompting Laura to march over and take it back.
Laura explained after both kids – a boy and a girl – asked for mousey, they went running over to their mums to make them force Sofia to give up the toy.
Laura explained: “I didn’t hear what the mother said initially but she finished off with ‘sharing is caring’.
“So the kids went up to my daughter, echoed what their mother had said & snatched Mousey off Sofia.
“Sofia looked right at me with sadness in her eyes. My heart begun to race & I went over to them & gently asked to return it, looking at their mothers as I said it.
“The girl said to me ‘but I want it so she has to share’.
“And I said ‘actually she doesn’t, it is hers, if she doesn’t want to share, she doesn’t have to’.”
Laura explained why she teaches her kids to say ‘no’ when it comes to sharing, likening it to theft.
She wrote: “Maybe I’m sounding like a monster but here’s my view. Sharing is a socially accepted form of theft and my child does not need to share with you.
“If I was out, on my phone, & another adult liked the features of my phone better than theirs – can they just snatch it out of my hands? ‘Sharing is caring!’ And yoink! No.
“No well functioning law obeying adult would dare to do that. It’s my property.”
Laura says she doesn’t care if she sounds like a ‘monster’, and claims she is in fact a ‘hero’.
She continued: “So while the parents of the other two kids looked at me like I was a monster, I knew that having something very personal that belongs to someone (that literally calms them when they are upset) ripped out of their hands with a sense of entitlement, is actually pretty rude.
“I have always struggled with saying no & this is one way I will teach my children to by encouraging them to say no.
“I won’t teach them that to hand something over when they don’t want to because it’s rude & not ‘caring’ whether it’s a toy, or anything to do with their own body, such as giving hugs.
“So although those parents looked at me like I was a jerk, I actually felt like I was a hero that day, & taught my daughter a valuable lesson, if she doesn’t want to share her personal belongings, she doesn’t have to, she can say NO & exercise her boundaries.”
Her controversial post has racked up hundreds of likes, as fellow mums agreed with her viewpoint.
One said: “100% agree, I love your point about the phone too.
“I think communal toys then yes need to share , personal toys or items no way! If you don’t want to you don’t have to.”
Another commented: “Absolutely! I think the situation is different in a playgroup or something where they are communal toys, but if the child brought it they keep it!”
While a third wrote: “Couldn’t agree with you more.”
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