I am NOT a packrat or hoarder. My house is not cluttered at all. Still I am holding on to items that have no useful purpose anymore for purely sentimental reasons. These things are touchstones to my past or my parents or grandparents past. It’s HARD to throw these things out. Memories are revived by some of these things.
Example: I recently unboxed my wedding dress for the first time in over 30 years. It had yellowed. It won’t fit my daughter. I doubt anyone shopping at Goodwill would want it. I don’t want to make pillows out of it. I still have the shirt I was wearing when I met my husband in college. I have clothes I wore on my honeymoon. And yet, it’s hard to throw these things out. I have boxes of my kids baby clothes. I have many of their school projects. I have many of their toys and books. I start to cry contemplating throwing these things away.
The other type of things are heirlooms. I have six sets of china and four sets of flatware from grandparents. I have other dishes that date from the early 1900’s. They aren’t valuable. I’ve looked.
I could just photograph all these things and then donate them, but…I fear I will regret it later.
If you don’t have hoarder mentality or clutter issues, you don’t have to get rid of things that that give you joy. I would reduce the kids clothes and projects and photograph your old clothing. Bless someone else with items if you can.
I got a peek at over-saving kids things when my MIL showed me all things she had kept from my DH. Too many things were no longer useful and had been damaged. His little coat could have kept another child warm but it is in bad shape now.
I kept one outfit from each child and made a point to pass along their clothing and most books to friends and family. I knew other mothers who could not afford nice things for their children and wanted to share. I have about one medium bin of things for my future grandma days – four favorite books, particular learning toys, special Legos and Transformers. I have my wedding dress and two of my mother’s 1950’s dressy teen party dresses.
I would keep and use the china. Set a beautiful table.
I don’t think there is anything wrong in keeping these items if they give you joy. It doesn’t sound excessive to me at all. Maybe your daughter doesn’t want your dress, but perhaps a granddaughter, or other relative at some point. That’s what I’m doing with mine.
I have 3 other items of clothing I haven’t gotten rid of for sentimental reasons.
I’m trying to uncluttered Knick knacks, old frames, stuff that has no real emotional attachment. I have two boxes of baby clothes, keeping them to see if they might want them when they have babies. Whatever they don’t want, at that point I’ll give away…perhaps keeping one or two items that I love.
If you don’t deal with it, your kids will have to and I doubt they’ll want the vast majority of those things. Try the photos on a few things at first. You might be surprised that once gone, you won’t think about it. Out of sight, out of mind.
It’s a good question. I’m going through a lot of that stuff now, as well. My kids are interested in very simplified living, so most things will be photographed, labeled with the story behind it, and the item donated. It’s still hard though. I have my engagement dress and feel an attachment to it.
My main concern is not leaving my “things” as a burden for my kids to dispose of. I’ve been burdened with this from a hoarder relative and it’s soul crushing.
It doesn’t sound like this is truly affecting your quality of life so I don’t see the need to get rid of them. That’s a lot of dishes and flatware though. I think I’d offer a set of each to each kid, telling them you’re OK with them eventually getting rid of the stuff themselves. And, especially because they aren’t valuable, I’d offer them up on NextDoor. They might make someone else really happy.
I have one specific suggestion … I donated my wedding dress to Angel Wings, a nonprofit that converts wedding dresses into burial gowns for babies. That sounds kind of sad, but I am happy to think that this dress that I no longer have a use for can go to perhaps provide comfort to a grieving family.
If I go through the things I’ve saved every couple of years I find that some things haven’t saved well (yellowed baby clothes, kid paintings with badly faded colors, items that will never come back into style or to which my emotional attachment has faded), some things bring joy (old notes or kids books) and a very few things I want to bring out again for use (photos or special family items). I try to be ruthless about jettisoning items in the first category. In my mind the key is to keep the saved things down to a manageable number of special items so you can experience that joy every once in a while. After all, what’s the point of holding onto things until you die and your children or grandkids have to wade through a load of stuff they don’t want?
I try to continually remind myself of the William Morris quote, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” For me the exception is boxes of photos and a box or two or sentimental items for each family member. I refuse to jettison the Grateful Dead onesie my daughter’s birth father gave her or the love note my son wrote to his preschool teacher. My old clothes I can do without, but that’s me. If they bring you joy what’s the harm in keeping them?
I know that’s a lot of rambling thought.
If you feel like you’re saving too much can you be disciplined enough to use the “one box in, one box out” method? For everything you add you make yourself get rid of something that’s less precious to you.
I keep a fraction of clothes, toys, etc., the ones that were best-liked, and donate the rest.
On the other hand, I’d love to have more mementos from my grandparents’ time, but they all either got lost in the war or had to be left behind when we emigrated. You never know. And photos are just not the same thing.
The dress I wore at my engagement party survived many moves. I looked at it over the years and wondered why I wa holding on to it. My girls tried it on in high school and it was way too tight. I still couldn’t part with it. I came across it recently just after my d became engaged. She tried it on and it was perfect for her. It is a classic design so she wore it beautifully to her engagement party. I am so thankful I didn’t toss it all those years ago.
My sister and I didn’t find it to be too much trouble after each of our parents died. (Our parents were divorced, so we did this twice – once for each household.) They weren’t hoarders, but each had a houseful of stuff.
We each took whatever we wanted (which wasn’t much), and then, with the help of the real estate agent in each case, we arranged for the following things to happen in the following order: 1) Someone who does tag sales for a living held one in the parent’s home. 2) Arrangements were made with a charity to come pick up anything they wanted that hadn’t sold in the tag sale. 3) A trash hauler was hired to remove anything that was left.
It was actually easy, and in one instance, we even made a little money on the tag sale (more than was needed to pay the trash hauler).
If it isn’t a huge amount of stuff, pack it up in nice acid-free boxes, and keep it. Trust your kids to decide for themselves what to keep, donate, and toss when the time comes.
And since my parents are still living, I have not yet cleaned out their home. I’ve often heard people say “I wonder what happened to X, Y or Z” (a cherished item of parents or grandparents) or “We made a mistake giving that away”.
I guess I will wait until it is absolutely necessary to get rid of things. For some things, I am this generations keeper of the things. I have the old family bible that the ancestors brought from Germany in the early 1800’s. I’d never get rid of that. I won’t be the person who threw out a possession that has been in the family for over 200 years. If my children don’t want it, their cousins might.
I had my mother’s china. I asked my younger son who was still living with us, but would be moving out eventually if I should keep it. We finally delivered it to him last year. But if no one wants it, it should just go. My wedding dress got boxed up in some packaging that is supposed to be archival. I haven’t looked. It was a gorgeous class dress from the 1930s and I can imagine someone wanting it, but I’ve got two boys and the one girl friend is tiny. I probably should hang on to it. I did photograph a lot of school projects and toss them. I worked for a woman who had the cutest letters and drawings her kids wrote framed and hung on her walls. It was really sweet.
I don’t have any advice but this is very quickly becoming a problem in our house. Both of my parents have passed away and many of the family “treasures” found their way to my house along with boxes of estate paperwork. I certainly didn’t keep everything, but what I have takes space. It’s boxed, labeled and organized and occasionally I go through it and get rid of a few things, but not much.
My FIL recently passed away and my MIL is downsizing. I think it’s all happening too fast, but my DH and his siblings have convinced her that she needs to move ASAP. The only way she is willing to get rid of things is to give it to one of the kids. It’s too much!!! And once this stuff lands in our house it will never leave!
Ever since I cleaned out my mother’s house I’ve been on a mission to get mine under control. This latest influx of stuff is pushing me over the edge but I’m glad that I did the previous cleaning or we would be in real trouble.
The joke of it is, I will live my life surrounded by things I don’t want and my kids will most likely throw everything in a dumpster the minute I’m dead. None of it will mean anything to them. They have a few things from their grandparents that they wanted but all of this other stuff is just stuff.
I know that the solution is to donate it and I have done a good bit of that, but the things that are remaining, I can’t seem to let go. Once the dust settles, my DH is going to need to take a look at what we have from his mother and decide if it is necessary to keep it all, but for now I’m accepting it.
We’re facing similar issues, and not just with stuff from our parents. We have a full set of china, crystal, and silver that we got when we got married, that we rarely use (we never use the crystal–most is still in boxes). To keep it, we have to believe that one of our kids will want a full set of china and crystal, and, what’s more, that they’ll want the set we have.
And what about old love letters–especially those from old girlfriends I DIDN’T marry?
I love the advice of asking your kids if they want the china and letting them know it’s OK if they don’t keep it. I have several massive pieces of furniture that we inherited from my in laws that we can’t dispose of, ever, because they guilted us into keeping them forever.
On the other hand, I’m grateful to my college friend, who recently found a letter from me to her she’d saved for 35 years. “Dear [friend], I’ve met this really great guy!..” So fun to read my 20 year old self gushing about my now husband of close to 30 years.
I would keep only the most sentimental items and get rid of as much as you can. As already stated, children will throw out most of it because they don’t know what it is!
I recently took individual photographs of all of my sentimental and keepsake items. Then using WORD, I made and printed a report that is simply a picture of the item and its description, like if it had belonged to my grandmother, etc. and when/where I received it. If the item is valuable, I indicated that as well.
My children currently have absolutely no interest in the items or my report! However, when the time comes, I believe it will help them decide what to keep.
