This article had me in tears. You might want to put down your coffee cup before reading. The porcelain birds!!
We are trying to make room in the basement for the “stuff” DH brought home from MIL/FIL’s house. Easy first step - throw out all the VHS tapes. And all boxes that moved here in 1997 and have not been opened. Umm, no, he won’t do it. The packrat gene is strong. I’ll remind the kids again over Thanksgiving that our stuff is just stuff, and they are under no moral obligation to keep any of it.
If the link doesn’t work, you should be able to get to the article by googling boomer parent downsize.
That doesn’t work if you’ve read more than a few–I think it’s 3–WSJ articles within a certain amount of time. If you do google boomer parents downsize you get a lot of articles on the same topic.
If memory serves me right, wait a few days then the article will be available for free viewing.
This is what’s happening to us right now. Mom is a hoarder,currently in rehab due to tripping over the junk in her house, so we are emptying her stuff and “voluntarily” move them to our house. Once she decides what to keep and we’ll be firm to only allow what’s needed back to her place, everything will go to dumpster/Goodwill. Good thing they are all second hand or garage sale junk. Better yet, a few of those purses contain hundreds of dollars! So check coat jackets/boxes/jars, etc. before throwing them out.
My divorce was finalized in May. I got the house and its contents. Definitely a mixed blessing: the house is nice enough and the yard is great but I have the responsibility of dealing with all the stuff. My ex-h rarely threw things away, and my daughters still have many things in their bedrooms. I’m finding the process very difficult, not because I find it mentally hard to part with things but because it is so disgusting to touch items and surfaces in the basement. But much better me doing it than my daughters having to at some point.
I absolutely refuse to do this to my kids. WILL NOT DO IT. I cleaned out my cousins house after she died at age 59. Couldn’t put her girls through that. It was HORRIBLE!!
I have one memory box for me and one for each kid ( letters, cards, etc…) Other than that I I keep nothing in boxes that is not used within a year ( e.g, holiday platters etc). Everything else that’s not highly valuable ( and little is) goes immediately to Goodwill. I will offer the small amount of really valuable stuff I don’t use to family members, then to resale shop.
My kids won’t have junk thrust on them. And no big clean up either.
And when we downsize, I have no problem giving stuff to Goodwill. If the resale shop won’t take it, it’s not that valuable.
It occurred to me recently that all of my grandparents and well as H’s grandparents lived in small homes and never accumulated a lot of “stuff”. Our parent’s generation were the ones who were more prosperous than their own parents, built larger homes and filled them with you know what. As baby boomers we are the first generation dealing with this issue.
Our kids are watching. I seriously think this is one reason why millennials are not as vested in having all that junk. Like maya I am determined to NOT do this to my kids. We are already decluttering and when we retire and downsize in 5 years or so we will get rid of a lot more.
I’m struggling. I have 5 sets of china, two sets of silver…My boys do like the holidays with china and silver, I just got a question about that this week (if I was going to haul out the china etc. for Thanksgiving)…the question is will the boys each WANT a set of their own. And the books…an entire library of books, classics with many passed down - at least Kindle took care of that situation. And the paintings…we aren’t downsizing as we never up-sized, so I guess it’s on the kids, but I’ve got parents with a whole house full of “stuff” too.
My dad was somewhat offended that we, the adult children, did not want many of things that were dear to him, or things he thought were valuable or sentimental. My sister, bless her heart, did take a lot of the furniture, art, collectables, but the rest of us had the estate sale people on speed dial.
It is especially hard with things that have been in the family for generations. The antique chair and mirror that were my ggrandmothers. I don’t want to be the person who hasn’t passed it on and takes it to an antique shop. Small items are easy. It’s the larger items.
Add me to the list of people who is anti-hoarding and pro-minimalist (after having grown up poor and gone through a phase of accumulating stuff for the past 20 years only to realize it’s just aggravating to have it all around you and maintain it, so now I’ve reversed course).
My MIL does stuff like the article references all the time-she brings stuff over for me to deal with. Like empty toilet paper rolls that she saves because she thinks we still have a gerbil. It’s ok, I am good with recycling.
Some of the stuff I’ve gotten in trouble for tossing, though. She stopped bringing me old family photos after she found out I was scanning them and then tossing them. She freaked!
My sister lives in France and she is always bewildered how American tourists frequent the Parisian flea market. Just because they are old and carry French labels do not make them worth anything in her eyes. French junk is American treasure, I guess. Now if only we can ship our junk over there and see if they become exotic! She said it’s not unusual to see farm houses for sale with full of furniture. Either they don’t have heirs or their heirs don’t want to haul them back to their tiny Paris apartments either.
I just don’t know what to do about the breakfront filled with heavy crystal vases, bowls, serving pieces, etc., some of which was handed down by my grandparents. My parents are in their 80s and are my mother in particular is so attached to her stuff! We are trying to declutter and downsize ourselves - I hardly want her heirlooms - but some of those pieces would be hard to part with.
I won’t part with the china, sterling flatware, or enough crystal for a big party. (My girls each like different china sets and can deal with the crystal as they wish.) But any day now, I will cull through the furniture DH’s maternal great grandparents passed down, old, worth taking to a good auctioneer rather than Salvation Army, but none of it truly valuable. Luckily, a couple of pieces from his father’s side have family sentimental value and a cousin will take them. (Don’t forget those cousins.)
Unfortunately, the result of my mother moving to AZ 18 months ago, then dying this May, is that her treasured furniture went to resale there. Not a market for it. My brother, who lives an 8 hour drive away, may go get it and take it to his better market. Dunno. But we warned her, repeatedly, to downsize. For now, I’m dealing with the foot high pile of catalogs she receives every few weeks, that are re-routed to my house.
What they don’t realize is that, except for the “antique chair and mirror,” at our ages we’ve already lived a while and set up our homes.
It’s so hard though. My military wife mom thought she was doing her kids a great service by buying a complete set of china for each of them when she had a chance to buy them overseas for a lot less $. My married kid has one set–used as everyday china–and I have 2 sets. I also have extra dessert plates and tea and coffee cups.
I am sure my married kid would have turned down the china if they had had any everyday dishes at the time, but they didn’t. I agreed to keep my mouth shut about the china going into the dishwasher. Thus far, it has survived. (No gold or silver band on this particular pattern.) I figure that if gets used, my mom would be happy.
That still leaves me with two sets, plus lots of extra serving pieces and tea and coffee cups. I figure that gives me an incentive to live a very long life as my grandchildren, the oldest of whom is a toddler, might want them. Not only do things like this go in and out of style, but if they can have these for free vs. paying for anything else, there’s a chance one might take them.
Rockville, my MIL, as with so many her age, collected antique cut glass, beautiful pieces, but no longer valuable, as he woman at one shop told us, “many ladies that age collected this glass, they are all dying and all their pieces are coming on the market” Only the very best pieces would be sellable. I kept a few I liked an the girls can have them, or not, when they establish homes.
I volunteer at a charity thrift store. Right now…we have more than several very lovely sets of china…very complete…service for 12 with serving pieces that we can’t sell for $50 for the whole set. I’m talking Lenox, Noritaki, wedgewood, Spode , really nice sets). Things like Waterford Crystal do sell…but for a song. Silver plate? Nope…none of it.
My take away…use your “good stuff” and enjoy it. Don’t expect that your kids…or anyone else is going to really want it.
We regularly get donations of whole households of stuff from senior relatives who have died. I talked to a couple of families to make sure they wanted the Tiffany platters donated…etc. they told me “everyone in the family took what they wanted”.
I have offered my kids anything in this house and they can take it at any time. The only thing I’m hanging onto until I go is my sterling flatware…DD wants that.
Before you just toss stuff out willy-nilly check with your kids. My dad was tossing his college yearbooks (he’s 94 now) and I fortunately was around to save them. It was like a very fun history lesson that I almost missed.