NEED TO KNOW

• Vidya Gopalan, known as @queencitytrends, often shares parenting, lifestyle and fashion content with her nearly 5 million followers

• A recent video sparked backlash after she cleaned out her daughter's closet without consulting her about donations

• Gopalan has faced criticism before for her parenting choices, including her strict summertime rules for her children

Known to her nearly 5 million followers as @queencitytrends, 40-year-old viral mom-fluencer Vidya Gopalan primarily creates parenting, lifestyle and fashion content. Her videos often feature her husband Rakesh, whom viewers know online as Pookesh, and their two children: Sahana, 14, and Shaan, 11.

Gopalan is no stranger to sparking controversy over her parenting decisions, and a recent viral video on donating her kids' clothes is no different. The content creator began the clip by warning her children about her actions, prompting an immediate exclamation from her daughter, Sahana: "We need more clothes, not less!" Vidya laughed and fired back, "You guys act like we don't buy anything."

Vidya explained that trying to clean and organize with the children around is "too much," so she chooses to wait until they leave before she starts sorting. However, once the kids actually saw the cleaned-out closet, they appeared to calm down and acknowledged that her plan did make the space look nice.

She captioned the video, "When moms walk in with a trash bag 💕don't worry she will look over everything to make sure I didn't get rid of something she loves 😉." Nevertheless, some users in the comments section disagreed with her parenting choice, pointing out that the clothes selected for donation should be chosen by the tween herself instead of her mother.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

"These kids get no privacy in any aspect of their lives. So sad," one commenter wrote.

"You need to have respect for her and let her chose what SHE wants to get rid of 😫," another added.

"yeah that's insane. if my mom did this to me I would be livid," wrote a third.

These remarks are only a small fraction of the more than 1,000 comments left on the post, the majority of which express criticism toward Vidya's parenting.

More in Celebrity

Kathy Griffin, 65, Seemingly Introduces New Love Interest, 22, While Holding Hands in Cheeky Photo: “Have at It, Internet”

InStyle

279

Priscilla Presley’s Son Navarone, 37, Defends Using GoFundMe to Start Pizza Business He Wants to Run from His Driveway

People

486

After 34 years, Kristi Noem is divorcing, says mother

USA TODAY

2.1K

Widowed Senior Women Are Already Meeting Online — Don’t Miss ThisCallyourdate ·

AdAd

The video ends with Vidya panning the camera toward Sahana, who is seated next to three completely stuffed trash bags of clothing, as she asks, "Where should we donate this all… me?"

Read the original article on People

It's safe to say most people have some clutter hiding in the home. It could be in your closet, your nightstand, your bathroom cabinet, or somewhere else. If you're feeling overwhelmed and don't know where to start when it comes to decluttering, we tapped organizers for tips on things that don't belong in your home.

Clutter has a way of building up because it's often hard to know what to do with an item. Deciding whether to keep, donate, or throw away an item can take more energy and time than you expect. You may hang onto items "just in case" or feel reluctant to get rid of items because you have a sentimental attachment to them. One idea to start with: "If you no longer use something but know it has value or could benefit someone else, it's safe to let it go," says Amelia Meena, a professional organizer and founder of Appleshine.

Below, experts share the things to declutter from your home, from old books to expired toiletry items. If you're looking for a method to motivate you, a few editor-approved ones include the core 4 method, the 10-10 method, and the 50% rule.

Expired spices and food

If your fridge is packed with condiments or your cabinets are overflowing with spice jars, it's time to take stock. Toss expired ingredients, condiments, and spices to free up space and avoid potential health risks.

Books you've already read

Instead of letting books gather dust in the closet or pile up on the nightstand, donate them when you're done reading. "Books in good condition can go to book sales, libraries or thrift stores," says Julie Stobbe of Mind Over Clutter.

Shopping and tote bags

Avoid collecting excess reusable shopping bags by keeping just a few favorites — around two or three per person — and donating the rest.

Unworn and unloved clothing

Keep only the clothes you currently wear and love. Donate well-maintained clothing items and discard any torn or damaged items. "Donating sooner rather than later ensures items will be in style and can be sold by thrift or consignment stores," says Stobbe. "Clothing stored for years often gets damaged and ends up in a landfill."

Expired or unwanted toiletries

Check under the bathroom sink, where clutter builds up quickly, says Rachel Rosenthal, a professional organizer at Rachel and Company. "It's a great spot to find expired or unnecessary items." Clear out expired cosmetics, skincare products, medications and bulky packaging to free up space.

Old linens, towels and pillows

If your linen closet is overflowing, toss any stained or torn linens. Donate gently used sheets and pillows that no longer fit your beds to local charities, and give old towels and bedding to animal shelters.

Incomplete toy sets and games

With kids, toys and games pile up fast — whether in the living room, playroom or bedroom. Donate anything they've outgrown (when's the last time they played with that baby doll?). Toss or repurpose books, puzzles and games with missing pieces, and clear out broken crayons, dried-out markers and incomplete toy sets.

Miscellaneous wires and cords

Searching for a charger in a tangle of wires is frustrating. If you don't know what a cord belongs to, toss it! "There's no need to keep cords for devices you no longer own," says Rosenthal.

Old shoes

Get rid of unworn shoes, from worn-out sneakers to uncomfortable heels, and donate any pairs in good condition. "Don't hold onto shoes that are too tight or uncomfortable," says Rosenthal.

Empty takeout containers

Ditch cheap plastic containers, especially those that are stained, cracked or missing lids. Sort through your kitchen cabinets and recycle any that haven't held up. While you're at it, toss chipped dishes, glasses and damaged kitchen gadgets.

Extra vases

A beautiful bouquet often comes with a glass vase, but how many do you really need? Keep one or two for your favorite blooms and donate the rest to a thrift store — or try selling them on Facebook Marketplace.

Junk mail and takeout menus

As you sort through mail, toss junk mail and takeout menus straight into the recycling bin. If a stack is piling up in your junk drawer, now's the time to clear it out. Be sure to shred any mail containing personal information.

You Might Also Like

• Eat These Expert-Recommended Foods to Lower Your Blood Pressure Naturally

• We've Tested Over 300 Sets of Bed Sheets. These Are the Best.

• 170 Corny Jokes That Are Seriously Funny

Key Points

• Thrift stores reject items like used makeup and skincare for hygiene reasons.

• They toss out potential safety issues, like child car seats and strollers that may not be up to code.

• Items like reusable grocery bags are thrown out because they are considered clutter.

Donating items to a thrift shop is a win-win. You get to declutter your home, while your gently used items get a second life. It's good for the environment by reducing waste and supports the local community by offering up great items at affordable prices.

But unfortunately, not every item is considered reusable—whether for sanitary or safety reasons. Here, thrift experts break down what not to donate, why, and what you could do with those items instead.

Meet the Experts

• PJ Gach is a fashion, shopping, and thrifting expert who worked and volunteered in thrift stores for years.

• Cynthia Traxler is the founder of Review-Reuse-Repair.com.

• Marlise Kast-Myers is the owner of Brick n Barn antique shop that accepts donated items.

Knives

Everything from steak knives and chef knives to pen knives usually gets shuffled out the back door of thrift stores.

Thrifting expert PJ Gach worked at thrift stores, sifting through the shops' donation hauls. Though some thrift shops might accept knives as donations, Gach says some stores feel that any sharp knife or knife-like instrument could be turned into a weapon. Instead of selling them, the thrift shop simply had them thrown out.

To avoid having your donated knives junked, call ahead to query if the thrift store even accepts these used items. If you can't find a location willing to take them—and especially if your chef's knives are of high quality—consider offering them to family or friends who like to cook.

Car Seats and Strollers

Car seats and strollers are other unwanted donations considered unsafe.

"Due to constant recalls and safety issues, the thrift store I volunteered for would not allow them onto the sales floor. This is a health and safety issue," Gach says.

Thrift stores in general do not want to sell an item that could hurt someone. Sometimes, car seats and strollers are recycled at recycling centers—but not every thrift shop or Goodwill will do this on your behalf.

More in Lifestyle

A couple built their home themselves to save money. Their mortgage is less than $900 a month.

Business Insider

'You have to say no': Families struggling with holiday food costs

BBC

Forget logos, young people in China want ‘spiritual’ luxury

CNN

20 Pieces of Clothing Older Women should Avoidwomentales.com ·

AdAd

Instead of donating to a thrift shop, recycle these items yourself. Or give these items to family or friends who have children who fit the items' height and weight requirements.

You can also call your local charities; some may accept them for new parent how-to demonstrations.

Partially Used Cosmetics and Skincare

For hygiene reasons, used makeup—no matter how gently used—cannot be resold.

"As anyone who's opened an old makeup palette and found mold growing in the eyeshadows knows, old makeup needs to be tossed out," Gach says.

As a thrift store sorter, she had no way of knowing how often the cosmetics were used or how old they are. So, makeup and skincare, unless it was sealed, went straight into the trash, she says.

Instead of donating these items, consider upcycling the glass jars. You can turn these into spare coin holders, candle jars, or even '90s-inspired sand art. If you strip the labels off the glass jars, no one will know that these pretty containers once housed your cosmetics.

Bike Helmets

Unless this item was donated "new in the box," this safety-related item is typically tossed.

"We just don't want anyone to get hurt by a non-working, defective or out-of-date product," thrift website owner Cynthia Traxler says.

Sometimes you can donate these items to groups that specialize in the item or activity, Traxler says. Community bicycle repair programs may know which bicycle helmets are the good ones and are up to date on their safety requirements.

Otherwise, local sports programs, like bike advocacy groups focused on cycling or outdoor activities may accept helmet donations.

Reusable Grocery Bags

Thrift shops get a lot of bags because people use them to package up their donations, says Traxler. In reality, these items add to thrift shop clutter.

"We try to sell them, but only about 10% of the nicest ones are marketable," she says. "We also try to give them to people buying items from the shop, but we always have too many."

Instead of donating reusable grocery bags, keep them. You never know when they can come in handy for grocery shopping hauls. Or, you can offer to donate the bags to a grocery store.

Broken Mirrors

If you have a beautiful antique piece with a minor break, you might be tempted to donate it. However resist the urge.

"Broken mirrors are associated with bad luck and simply won't sell," says antique shop owner Marlise Kast-Myers. "Plus, cracked or chipped glassware can be dangerous with shards and is otherwise unusable."

You can try to repair the cracked glass to keep the mirror. Or you can upcycle it.

Vacuums

Sadly, the world is full of crummy vacuum cleaners.

"Even if they turn on, they tend to have poor suction, are clogged, have a broken belt, or are missing attachments," says Traxler.

And to be honest, most of the vacuums she sees donated are filthy by the time they arrive. Hence, avoid donating your vacuum cleaner, unless it is still in its packaging and unused.

YouTube abounds with videos on how to repair vacuums, says Traxler, so you can try to learn how to fix the vacuum and keep it. Or, if your vacuum really is a lost cause, the right thing to do is to take it to small appliance recycling program.

Read the original article on The Spruce

What if the most important style upgrade you could make this year has nothing to do with your closet?

Not your wardrobe. Not your shoes. Not the jeans you've been debating. Those things can wait.

This is about something far more significant than what you put on your body. It's about what you've been carrying inside it. The invisible weight that most women over 50 have been wearing so long they've forgotten it's optional.

After 35 years of working with women and six decades of living in my own skin, here's what I know: the things that weigh us down the most in this season of life aren't hanging in our closets. They're running quietly in the background of our minds. They're the beliefs, the habits, and the thought patterns we reach for every morning without ever stopping to ask whether they still fit.

And some of them stopped fitting a long time ago.

Before I go further, let me be clear: this is not a list of fashion rules. I will never tell you what you can or cannot wear. At 50 and beyond, you have absolutely earned the right to dress in whatever makes you feel like yourself. Bold color, comfortable shoes, silver hair, leggings on a Tuesday, all of it. If it brings you joy, wear it with everything you've got.

Confidence is always in style.

But this conversation goes much deeper than that. It's about the invisible things we put on every morning before we ever open our closets. And there are three I'd like to gently invite you to take off.

Stop Wearing Worry Like a Second Skin

For a lot of women, worry has become so familiar it barely registers anymore. It's just there, steady in the background, always running at a low hum.

We worry about our children, no matter how grown they are. We worry about aging parents and impossible decisions and things that haven't happened yet. We worry about our bodies, our relationships, the future, the things we can't control and the things we tried to control and couldn't.

And most of us learned somewhere along the way that worrying is actually a form of love. That stopping would mean we don't care enough.

But here's what I've come to understand after a lot of years and a lot of unnecessary carrying: worrying does not protect the people you love. It doesn't improve a single outcome. What it does is pull you out of your own life, drain your energy, and steal your presence from the people and moments that actually need you.

Popular in health and wellness

Chris Freytag for Get Healthy U

The Workout Habit That's Actually Raising Your Cortisol and Wrecking Your Results

I spent years carrying worry about my kids' choices, situations I had zero ability to change, outcomes that were never mine to control. And when I finally gave myself permission to let go of what wasn't mine to carry, I became calmer, more present, and genuinely lighter.

There's a mindset shift I've found powerful, sometimes called the "Let Them" approach. Let the people you love make their own choices and learn from them. Let things unfold without requiring you to manage every outcome. Let yourself have peace without waiting until everything is resolved.

Letting go is not indifference. It's wisdom. It's trusting that the people you love are capable, and trusting yourself to be okay even when life doesn't go the way you planned.

Worry has never looked good on anyone. What looks good is peace.

Stop Wearing Comparison Like a Measuring Tape

Comparison might be the single habit that steals the most joy from women in midlife, and in the age of social media it has become relentless.

You scroll and you see the woman who looks effortlessly put-together in every photo. The friend who seems to have the relationship, the energy, the body, the life you thought you'd have by now. And almost before you realize it's happening, you're measuring your ordinary Wednesday against someone else's carefully chosen highlight reel.

Here's the thing about comparison: it never shows you the full picture of someone's life. It shows you the version they selected, filtered, and chose to share. And measuring yourself against that edited version will always make your real, full, complicated, beautiful life feel smaller than it actually is.

You are not behind. There is no universal timeline for a meaningful life, and the woman you're comparing yourself to is carrying her own private weight that you cannot see from her feed.

The life you have built, everything you have navigated, survived, learned, and become, is not a lesser version of someone else's story. It is your own original one. And there is no comparison for that.

Instead of reaching for the measuring tape, try asking yourself:

• What matters most to me in this season of my life?

• What do I already have that I haven't given myself credit for?

• What does a good life look like on my own terms right now?

Your goals at 55 don't need to look like your goals at 35. That's not falling behind. That's called knowing yourself. And knowing yourself is one of the greatest things this season of life can give you.

Take off the measuring tape. Your life doesn't need to be measured against anyone else's to be exactly what it's supposed to be.

Stop Wearing Your Age Like an Apology

Something happens to a lot of women around 50. They start treating their age like something to explain, minimize, or quietly apologize for. They talk about getting older like it's a problem to manage rather than a story to live.

I want to push back on that as directly as I can.

Your age is not a limitation. It is context. It is the entire arc of a life that has been lived, felt, fought for, and survived. Every year has given you something that cannot be bought, rushed, or faked: perspective.

The clarity you have at 55 or 60 about who you are and what actually matters is earned through years of living. The patience to stop sweating the small things is earned. The confidence to say no to what drains you and yes to what fills you up is earned. None of it comes without the years, and you have the years.

When I look at the women in my community, I see women who are stronger and more authentically themselves than they have ever been at any earlier point in their lives. I see women who are discovering that this season isn't smaller than what came before. In many ways, it is bigger.

At 60, with a granddaughter who calls me Coco, I am not trying to be younger than I am. I am trying to be the best, most present version of who I am right now, today. And that feels like the whole point.

If you've been treating your age like something to hide or overcome, try something different. Try wearing it like what it actually is: evidence that you showed up. Evidence that you loved, worked, grew, changed, and kept going through every season that asked something hard of you.

There is no expiration date on a well-lived life. Your next chapter doesn't have to be smaller than the ones that came before.

My Personal Perspective

Something shifted for me in my 50s that I couldn't have predicted in my 40s. I got quieter in some ways. More selective. Less interested in performing and more interested in meaning.

I stopped carrying as much worry about things I couldn't change. I stopped measuring my life against what other women appeared to be doing. And I stopped treating my age like a problem to apologize for. When I put those things down, I had so much more energy for what actually matters.

I show up fully for the women in this community. I'm present with my husband of 35 years, my three grown kids, and Coco. I move my body because it makes me feel strong and capable, not because I'm chasing something I lost. I'm not trying to outrun time. I'm trying to live well inside it.

That shift didn't come from doing more. It came from carrying less.

What to Wear Instead

If we're taking these things off, the real question is what goes on in their place.

Here's what I believe every woman over 50 deserves to put on every single day:

• Self-compassion when your body, your emotions, or your energy needs something different than what the plan called for

• Curiosity about what's still ahead and what you haven't tried yet

• Confidence that comes from everything you've already lived through, not from comparison to anyone else

• Gratitude for what is working right now, even on the complicated days

• Permission to want new things, set new goals, and define success entirely on your own terms

This is the season to take care of yourself without guilt. To move your body because it feels good and keeps you strong, not as punishment. To rest without justifying it. To invest in yourself the way you've invested in everyone around you for decades.

You have earned that.

The Story Is Still Being Written

You are not too late. You are not past your prime. You are not invisible, irrelevant, or out of time.

You are in the middle of your story. And what you choose to carry from here forward has everything to do with how that story feels to live.

Take off the worry. Let comparison go. Stop apologizing for your age and everything it represents.

Put on self-trust. Put on presence. Put on the belief that the best of who you are is still unfolding, because it is.

This season is yours. Live it like it.

Related Reading

• Look 10 Pounds Lighter Instantly: 7 Style Mistakes Women Over 40 Should Avoid

• The Best Tops to Flatter a Midlife Belly

• Best Summer Dresses for Women Over 50

• I Tested Popular Athletic Wear Lookalikes: Here's What Worked

• Best Athletic Skorts for Women Over 50