Regarding your point 5. Gifts are a slow form of cluttering that snuck up on me. Children have multiple occasions per year where they are expected to get gifts,

Regarding your point 5. Gifts are a slow form of cluttering that snuck up on me. Children have multiple occasions per year where they are expected to get gifts, often more than one from more than one individual, which leads to sometimes dozens of gifts per child per year, most of which they rapidly lose interest in, added to an ever growing pile. It is rude to throw away gifts once received, and donating comes with its own caveats and effort. Unless the gifts pile is actively and continuously curated it grows over time and clutters the house. By the time I realized what was happening, we had already lost the fight and old toys were everywhere. We recently moved and used the occasion to declutter. We flipped the script and took only what we wanted: just the toys the kids still wanted, just the books worth keeping, just the clothes worth wearing, and so on. I would estimate we kept less than a quarter of the stuff in our old house. All that stuff clutters not just the house, but the mind as well.