Taking down the kid's shrine

Parent Cafe
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<p>Oh please it’s about taste. Hving a football poster over the sofa isn’t about autonomy it’s usually laziness and lack of imagination. </p>

<p>I have been happily married fornover 25 years. My husband doesn’t feel the need to keepmold trophies or signed soccer balls, and i don’t feel the need to keep old stuffed animals and ribbons from baby showers.</p>

<p>And believe me, my daughters are not bossy, smoggy, boring, humorless, or in bad relationships.</p>

<p>My younger daughters bf actually loved shopping and buying great cheap art for apartment. It felt less like it did when he was sharing themplace with four guys and it was like frat central. Instead, it’s a warm welcoming, adult apartment. She didn’t make him he wanted to move his posters. There is still the found yield sign, the bar stool they carried home, his lava lamp, her decorated bottles, but instead of a teens room, it’s an adult apartment.</p>

<p>When we moved, I put all my husband trophies in a box. It sat in the garage for months, he thought he wanted the, but eh, his memories and photo albums were enough. </p>

<p>He hates dry flowers, so my arrangements were donated. Did I care? Nope…</p>

<p>I guess I am one for creating space for new memories. </p>

<p>As for the suggestion my daughters are somehow stuck up…not in the least. They just like men who have moved on from high school trophies. Sorry if some women re not turned on by transformers, beanie babies, and apartments filled with childhood collections.</p>

<p>I get the feelings some are a little defensive here. </p>

<p>What my ds bf did say was that when his friends come over, they re like, wow, awesome place!! </p>

<p>And cobrat sorry to tell you, it’s the women who deocorte thhe home,a and most real men don’t mind at all.</p>

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<p>Cobrat’s experience in life is rather unique, his dislike of his Chinese relatives (more well off than his own family) have also colored his perception of normal American life.</p>

<p>I have 2 kids. The older one never got that attached to any stuff animals or dolls. The younger one is still sleeping with her stuff animas from when she was 6 months old. D2 has secretly packed them to take with her to every summer program, and I am sure they will go with her when she goes away to college this fall.</p>

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<p>As with perceptions of beauty and the fine aesthetics within the arts/music…it is in the eye of the beholder. </p>

<p>Moreover, having a difference of opinion regarding matters of taste IMHO should never be used to assess someone’s maturity level in the absence of any other factors/criteria.* </p>

<p>For instance, would you consider the two classical music fans having at it with fists at the Chicago Symphony as reported in the AP earlier today to be “more mature” than calm respectful adult fans of the Spice Girls, Barney the Purple Dinosaur, or Vanilla Ice…even if their tastes are admittedly dubious IMHO?</p>

<p>Personally, I have no problems with people having their own tastes…so long as they don’t use it as a means to harshly judge others. </p>

<p>Too close-minded and the risk of missing out on meeting otherwise interesting, engaging, highly intelligent folks in life is just too high. </p>

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<li>Only exception to this is good natured ribbing with good close friends about their dubious tastes…like my teasing one friend for being obsessed with disco music who returns the favor by teasing me for my obsession with 70’s era punk rock/'90s era pop-punk/alternative rock.<br></li>
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<p>From what I’ve observed, there seems to be a good correlation between reasoned collaboration/compromise without any serious condescending attitudes regarding the other respective spouse’s respective tastes and healthy happy marriages. </p>

<p>On the other hand, either party in a relationship with an “all-or-nothing” attitude towards everything…including decoration where there is condescending attitudes present in various matters…including taste tends to end in unhappy bitter marriages, divorces, and the creation of overwrought whiny middle-aged co-workers relating their supposed “tales of woe” to their younger colleagues. </p>

<p>And if you’re wondering…I enjoy being a captive audience to such older co-workers overwrought whiny tales about as much as going to the dentist to have my wisdom teeth pulled out.</p>

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<p>Actually…in many ways…Seahorserock’s perspectives on how to judge others’ maturity by their tastes/love of “immature” things is much more similar to those held by older generations of Chinese I’ve met in my grandparents/parents’ generations* than among most Americans I’ve met who are 70 and under. </p>

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<li>Born in the 1910’s-21/1930’s</li>
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<p>I just CANNOT believe this thread has spawned a fight. Good lord people.</p>

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<p>I doubt my son will take the beanie babies to his first apartment. </p>

<p>Good thing my other S and his fiancee agree on proper home design – bookshelves, in quantity. ;)</p>

<p>Alumother, am totally in agreement. Oy.</p>

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<p>One of the things I loved about my son’s college was that it was ok to still be young there. There’s a swing set on campus sized for college kids and I’m sure it felt perfectly fine to bring stuffed toys to college.</p>

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<p>I took my stuffed animals with me when I moved into my boyfriend’s apartment. I don’t really mind if that makes people think I am immature, they make me happy and the apartment didn’t feel like home until I brought them-- which I didn’t until I’d been there a few weeks. I don’t think boyfriend owns anything of sentimental value besides his car, he’s not a “thing” person, but he doesn’t mind my sillyness if it makes me feel good. :slight_smile: We don’t keep them on display in the living room or anything, however. They are private treasures. I dunno, seeing them just always makes me happy and they’re a great source of comfort-- just like my books. Some people are “thing” people, so long as I am not choosing my possessions over the people in my life I fail to see the problem with that.</p>

48

<p>I think before I make my son sort through and dispose of the mounds of junk he accumulated from his childhood, I should first sort through and dispose of the mounds of junk I accumulated from MY childhood.</p>

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<p>MIL kept 5 shrines for 5 sons. I am witness to her lying on her deathbed in the dining room, still begging her boys, aged 50-70, to go up and clear out their stuff. What happened is: they had so much fun bringing their own children to see it all, it took on a new life for a second generation.</p>

<p>When she passed, and they had to put her house on the market, they FINALLY picked the thumbtacks off their photos and put them into their wallets. The baby shoes went into the hands of each daughter-in-law.</p>

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<p>Lol, Hunt. I am a keeper too.</p>

<p>The baby shoes hang on my Christmas tree and they are really cute. Hope yours are not the brass ones, paying3tuitions.</p>

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<p>The eldest’s shoes were metalized. The younger four just shlepped along in soft leather.</p>

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<p>Emmaheevul07, I kept each of my kids’ first stuffed toys along with their first favorite bedtime books. They probably won’t think much of them until they have kid’s of their own.</p>

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<p>We’ve left D’s room alone, only because we don’t need the space. It still has all of her dance memorabilia, picture boards from HS, stuffed toys, etc., but that’s her doing. We haven’t added or subtracted anything.</p>

<p>It’s the best room in the house and I eventually plan to trade it for my office, and D’s fine with that. Maybe this summer we’ll do the big switch. It will be up to her what to display in her new room, or pack away or get rid of.</p>

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<p>Id say this: you shouldn’t go in there because he might have something (or more then one thing) you aren’t suposed to know about.</p>

<p>But you can make it a chill room and put some sofas in there.</p>

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<p>I redid DD room. She had so many pix on the walls (things went up but never came down). I “decluttered” the room (boxed a few treasures), left some treasures out.
New bed spread, new pillows. Had some prints she loved enlarged and framed for her room. Some stuffed animals are still out. It has a more “grown-up” look suitable for guests but still obviously “her” room. She loved it.</p>

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My mother gave away my baseball/football/basketball/hockey cards while I was in college without asking me because she thought I didn’t need them or want them … as it turns out collecting is my hobby … and the cards she gave away were worth about $2000 when she gave them away (around 1980). To me the worst part is the whole collection filled up 3-4 shoe boxes … it’s not like giving them away saved any room in the house.</p>

<p>As parents we box stuff up … and occasionally offer to help the kids cull their stuff … for example, going through their trophies and they all got rid of their participation trophies but held onto 2-3 that had some sentimental value or represent a significant accomplishment.</p>

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<p>There’s a picture of him with every chess trophy he ever won. They were falling apart, they are made of cheezy plastic. (Now what do we do with my Dad’s trophies? They are all silver - or at least silver plate.)</p>

<p>I think there’s a happy medium with how much stuff to keep. But my chess playing son, doesn’t have a sentimental bone in his body.</p>

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<p>Mine threw out my boxes of comic books from the early to mid-60’s. It still annoys me greatly when I think about it.</p>

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<p>"I’m sorry but an almost adult holding onto beenie babies? Why not donate them? There are amazing places that use them to help traumatized kids. </p>

<p>My daughters would think any college kid holding onto his toys well, is kind of odd. Tell him it’s not a turn on."</p>

<p>I am a woman in my mid-20’s, and I would say that a girl that would judge a guy for wanting to hold on to some things like these is not for him. There are plenty of girls out there who wouldn’t care, find it cute, or just worry more about what kind of person he actually is than what kind of stuff he has. Conforming to some sort of an ‘adult’ image in how one decorates one’s home or what he/she keeps is not ‘adult’, just silly. Responsibility for yourself and other makes you an adult, not if you have a stuffed animal, a plane model, or a poster vs. artwork. Maybe people who feel the need to create an ‘adult’ atmosphere becasue that’s what’s expected of them just feel insecure in themselves and have a need to conform.</p>

<p>On a personal note, what would actually raise a red flag with me is not someone holding on to some childhood things but someone getting rid of what they like/value because a random girl or group of girls didn’t find it a “turn on.” I always admire guys who have stuff that’s out of the ordinary in their offices or homes. That actually takes some guts and self-confidence.</p>

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Mine did this, too. You may have read about somebody who found $3.5 million worth of vintage comics in a deceased relative’s stuff. It turned out that this happened in my home town, and my mother mentioned it to me. “I had those same comics, and you threw them out,” I told her. That got her attention–although I had to admit I didn’t really have anything that rare or valuable–and they were probably all in terrible condition, too.</p>