The Reason This Mom Exclusively Uses Paper Plates For Meals Is Actually So Sweet

When I was a kid, my mom always had a stack of paper plates handy to make weekend meals easier to clean up, beginning each week with our traditional Friday night takeout meal. For every other day of the week, we'd use the "real" dishes, like most families, I'd imagine. However, one mom that Annie of Laughter and Kisses came across in her local Costco is making an incredibly sweet argument for using paper plates at every single meal (environmentalists, just hear her out!).

When Annie was behind this paper plate-loving mom in Costco, she says, "She was buying a massive amount of paper plates. Even for Costco standards!" which is what prompted the cashier to ask if the mom was hosting a party.

"[The mom] responded no. 'I use them at every meal. You see I have young kids, and I get stuck with meal clean up all the time. This is the one thing I treat myself to. I'd way rather be spending that time with my kids than doing the dishes.' The young cashier smiled with her Instagram-worthy makeup and well rested eyes. Obviously, she did not understand. I smiled to myself. I understood," Annie wrote in a post to her blog's Facebook page.

Feeling inspired by this mystery mom's tradition of using paper plates at every meal, Annie found herself in the grocery store a few weeks later trying to do mental math to figure out how much dishwasher soap was costing her per load.

That woman's voice popped into my head. "She would rather spend that time with her kids." I booked it the paper goods a few aisles over, and I treated myself to a few extra memories with my kids. Instead of stressing over getting the dishes loaded before bed time, I ran in the backyard with my kids chasing the soccer ball. We enjoyed roasted marshmallows by the fire instead of me scrubbing those plastic Paw Patrol plates. I treated myself to a stack of paper plates and a life time of memories with my kids this week!

So mamas, take note: even if you can't quite figure out whether the dollar value of each load of dishes is cheaper than a stack of Dixie plates, know that the memories you'll get to make with your kids instead may just be worth their weight in gold.