<p>Came across some old journals I used to keep when I was in my 20’s. Hadn’t seen them in years. Flipping through them made for some interesting reading, but I’m not sure I would ever want the kids or H to be reading them! Some pretty incriminating stuff there ;). Thinking about getting rid of them, but OTOH, were I to find something like that written by my late mother, or other direct ancestor, I would no doubt find it more than fascinating and probably important to knowing who they were.</p>
<p>Talk me into something. Or out of something.</p>
<p>I would keep them. I know I would love to have the journals of my mom or grandma when they were young; furthermore, I wouldn’t judge their past. I would see it as a treasure :)</p>
<p>I’ve read my grandmother’s journals from when she was young. I never got to know her and they are wonderful. My mom’s mom never hid anything about her past so there was nothing shocking (to us… certainly for a young woman in the 30s/40s it was lol) but it was still so much fun to read. It’s one thing to hear stories years later, it’s another entirely to hear it as it’s going on.</p>
<p>Keep em. Like was said above, you’ll be long gone by the time they’re read. We all have a past. If x, y, and z didn’t happen to us, we wouldn’t be who we are.</p>
<p>I found my mother’s journal written when she was 16 (the year she met my father), shortly after she died. It meant a lot to me and was quite illuminating.</p>
<p>My grandfather keep journals his whole life. While part of it is kind boring, it is interesting to read what life was like when he went to colorado school of mines in the late 1920’s early 1930’s. I’d keep the journals. They are a part of your families history.</p>
<p>I’m into genealogy. I’m currently rapidly reading the diary of a Baptist minister in 18th century New England. Some of my ancestors were in his congregation. It gives me a much better idea of what their lives were like.</p>
<p>I so wish there were a record of my mother’s thoughts and daily concerns when she was young, or my grandmother’s or great-grandmother’s. I also vote to keep them. But then, I’ve kept every love letter I’ve ever received, going back to HS. D should get a real kick out of those someday. :)</p>
<p>Another genealogist here, with another vote to keep them! They will be priceless to someone one day. If there’s anything really awful in there, I suppose you could remove those pages or scratch out a few lines. Or you could just hide them away for someone to discover after you’re gone.</p>
<p>Keep them! Box them up and stick the in the far corner of the attic if you need to, with a note of explanation in the box. Someday someone will be thrilled to read them.</p>
<p>My mom kept every letter my dad wrote to her during WWiI. They spent many years ignored and stashed in the basement, but after he died in 2001 she retrieved them. Those old letters were precious to her. He had also kept a diary for years that she loved to read. When my mom died my sister took the letters and I took the diaries. They are carefully stored. </p>
<p>You could also store them digitally, but the tactile feel of the paper and the presence of the diary itself can not be reproduced. Don’t throw out the physical diaries.</p>
<p>My husband has an old Shakespeare Anthology that had been his (now deceased) father’s college textbook. Love seeing the penned notes he wrote in the margins. Now that our kids are old enough to have read some Shakespeare they get a kick out of getting to know their grandfather as a young man.</p>
<p>Keep them. Although they may be an embarrassment to you, your H and kids know who you are today, and will not think any less of you if they should read them. If anything, it shows the path you took to become the great person you are today!</p>
<p>Wow, verdict seems to be on the side of keeping them! I need to find the rest of them, because I only found a couple of years worth and I know there are more someplace. I’m adding another project to my “empty nest” list to read through them someday and “redact” anything that’s problematic (which shouldn’t be that much really, but possibly a few things :)). Good project for a mid-winter break.</p>
<p>I love this idea! In the meantime, you can type up the contents in MS Word or the like and password-protect it. I don’t advise storing it in the cloud unless you don’t mind the contents to be part of PRISM’s database.</p>