<p>Great news! </p>
<p>Great to hear she apologized. Happy ending! </p>
<p>As for who owns it, I think her stuff belongs to her. We spend time choosing what to buy and put together what’s ours. I hate it when people say I paid so it’s mine. I’d say I shopped so it’s mine. Money can’t buy the right pattern or the freshest produce.</p>
<p>I don’t think of books that i have bought as being any ONE child’s books, unless given for an occasion.</p>
<p>If one son needed Book X for his English class, and then the other son later needed the same book, I would flip out if the first son declared that the book was HIS, and that he wasn’t going to let his brother use it. like heck am i going to rebuy that book!!</p>
<p>A mom I know was annoyed when one D was going to get rid of a blouse with tags on it (that mom paid for…but was not a gift for an occasion) instead of letting her sister use it. That would tick me off as well.</p>
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<p>glad to hear that she apologized, but odd that she bit the hand that was having to drive her.</p>
<p>Glad things worked out and your D apologized.
We are all works in progress.</p>
<p>I don’t quite understand those that feel the parent is entitled to tax deductions for charitable donations.
Is the parent claiming she bought books and clothes for herself, but loaned them to D? Or did the parent buy items for D and now D wants to give her things away? I understand most parents would want the deduction, but I’m not so sure they are entitled to it now. Don’t these items now belong to D?
Further, I have to agree the student is being a brat. “treat me like an adult” to a child means- child gets all the privileges of adulthood but not all the costs or responsibilities. Ok to provide a home, ok to pay college and other bills, but child wants autonomy on decisions. Sorry, but real adults know that isn’t yet adulthood. If a parent goes to grocery and buys a can of soup, does this daughter think she can eat it without permission? Does she have free hand to use things parent bought but parent doesn’t have the same right?</p>
<p>Does this D, on the verge of adult want to be treated like an adult? Does she want to make all her own decisions? And does she realize that along with making her own decisions comes paying all her own bills, in her own place? That’s what adults do.</p>
<p>Pleased to see since I started this comment that now it seems resolved.</p>
<p>Completely agree with mom2ck. Possessions are shared within the family first. But, everyone knows this and I can’t imagine one of my kids packing up their stuff in insisting it be thrown out unopened. It’s almost laughable. If there is an old sweater or a book in there that somebody else wants it’s open season. Good grief. Mine. Mine. Mine. Yeah, not so much. And, if she’s throwing away “gifts” that may be worse. I also would have no problem taking a tax deduction for donating stuff my kids have outgrown. But, it’s not worth much. lol.</p>
<p>Glad the issue is over. She was wrong and apologized. A success.</p>
<p>If kids pay taxes, they can take the deduction. If they aren’t paying taxes, should the deduction go wasted?</p>
<p>No need to extend the situation, absolutely wonderful kids can be brats at times. Labeling is dangerous.</p>
<p>I suspect some of those who think everything a parent buys belongs to the parent, whether clothes, books, furniture, etc. are also parents who control their kids with money when they’re in college and beyond. I buy my kid clothes, books, toys (when she was little) and furnishings because that’s part of my job as a parent. For now, as she is only 14 and doesn’t file taxes, we take the deduction when we donate stuff she doesn’t want. But a year ago we bought her a more upscale bed and sold her loft-we split the money with her. And when she outgrows some of her nicer clothing (she just grew an inch and went up in shoe size) and gives them to a smaller friend, we don’t make her pay us back. If we had expensive antiques or heirloom clothes and books, that would be different. But we don’t. </p>
<p>EK, I’m glad your D came around. My older D used to snap at me when she was stressed. I was the safe person to snap at. That didn’t make it right, but I think it was better than internalizing it and over-worrying. She’s past that now that she is older.</p>
<p>Similar to mom2collegekids, we have always maintained with our kids that most things are family belongings. Some sentimental things ‘belong’ to them, but the vast majority of ‘stuff’ is there for the enjoyment/use of the entire family. From the time they were little kids this has done a lot to avoid the ‘mine, mine, mine’ arguments that kids often devolve into. Even gifts are their exclusive property for 1 day. This has worked extremely well for us and I love that my kids share much more willingly than most kids with whom they interact.</p>
<p>In my experience ‘stuff’ means different things to different people. Maybe some of the stuff reminds her of something she would rather forget. I am more of a keeper, my wife is not. Perhaps some of the conflict is in that.</p>
<p>“I suspect some of those who think everything a parent buys belongs to the parent, whether clothes, books, furniture, etc. are also parents who control their kids with money when they’re in college and beyond”</p>
<p>Hmmm. I doubt this very much. But, it would never occur to me to give the kids profits off of furniture sales. Wow. It’s very interesting how people handle these things. We just keep it simple and share based mostly on need. In college I prefer they work to earn the extra “stuff” and they do so it’s all good and there’s really nothing to control. But, we discuss budget openly. </p>
<p>Both kids have brought home piles of “stuff” they’re done with and dumped it off here. A gift, I guess.</p>
<p>My children could care less what I do with the things they no longer have use for. They make a pile, put it in bags/boxes and ask me to haul it away. I don’t usually go through it because I know it is just old clothing and things that are broken or no longer useful.</p>
<p>We did sell a lightly used table hockey foos ball game that was my sons. It was in our basement and he and his friends had outgrown it. We ended up getting $275 for it and I did give the $ to him. It had been a christmas present to him years back so I felt he was entitled to it. Needless to say he was thrilled! Now he wants to sell his air hockey table.</p>
<p>Emeraldkity- from what you have shared in the past I bet it was anxiety on her part that made her snap at you. I had a talk yesterday with my youngest who has been dealing with anxiety. She said she now realizes that when she would snap at us for no real reason she now knows it was because she was experiencing anxiety at the time.</p>
<p>One issue I have with my girls is that if one takes a piece of clothing that has been sitting in the others closet for many years the original owner gets quite upset. Both no longer live at home and the clothes, books and other stuff has been sitting in their bedrooms. In the case of the oldest some of it for 10 yrs. I figure if I paid for it and one is clearly not wearing something the other can take it. They don’t see it that way.</p>
<p>A couple of points on this: first, only the person who owns the stuff should really be taking a tax deduction for donating it. It’s not really relevant who paid for it.</p>
<p>And this is one of those situations where I can imagine a set of facts in which the daughter’s behavior wouldn’t seem so bad. This may not be what happened, but…let’s imagine that she packed up her belongings to be either moved or donated, and told her mother that she had taken care of everything, and that she would be coming by to pick up her stuff. Then, her mother opened the boxes to see if she wanted to keep some of the stuff. When the daughter came to get her stuff, her mother said, “I want to keep some of this stuff; after all I paid for it, so it’s really mine.” This might put a bit of a different light on the situation. Again, it sounds like this isn’t exactly what happened, and the situation has been resolved, but…young adults do, in fact, own their own stuff.</p>
<p>Agreed, this was a silly stress outburst and it’s over. Thankfully.</p>
<p>Mine are not particularly attached to their old stuff. Who is? But, I doubt they would refuse me a secondhand book and insist it go to charity instead. That was wrong and she’s apologized. My son has some pricey music stuff that he’s losing interest in. We bought it between the ages of 9 & 13. It’s his but he knows he doesn’t have the option of selling it to buy skis and surfboards. So, maybe it’s not his at all. It’s never been an issue. He just knows. </p>
<p>I guess there can be ambiguity as to who owns certain things. For example, we bought a clarinet for my son, and when he got a better one, it was passed on to my daughter to play. Now that she no longer plays, who owns it? In this case, I think I do. I think she’d agree–but I think she’d be quite adamant that she owns her guitar, even if she stopped playing it.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>I think there are some gray areas within families. If I had bought some super-duper pricey instrument for my child to use for his lessons, practice, school band, etc, I wouldn’t want him thinking, “hmmm…now it is mine, I can sell it on Craig’s List for some new sports equipment”…at least not without some discussion. </p>
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<p>Let me ask this then; if she then damaged the more upscale bed you bought her, say spilled nail polish remover on it destroying the finish or wrote on it with a marker, would you be ok with it? It’s interesting how many different views we have on the things we give our kids. How about if you buy your teenage daughter an expensive gold necklace and a few months later you find it in her wastebasket because she doesn’t want it anymore; is that ok too?</p>
<p>I suppose my feeling is that when my kids move out for good they can of course take any of the things we’ve bought them over the years but if they don’t want a particular item (unless they want to give it to a friend) then I feel ok keeping it or donating it. I don’t believe they would feel differently.</p>
<p>“Mine are not particularly attached to their old stuff. Who is?”</p>
<p>Well my son’s could careless about their old stuff but I have boxes in my closet with my old toys from the 1960’s.:)</p>
<p>Happydad and I are getting ready for a 1000+ mile move, and Happykid while staying in the area, isn’t planning to live in our current home. Everything has to be gone through, and I’m trying to work out a system that will keep this down to only one pass through for each of us. Right now the options are “Yup this is mine and I’m keeping it.” or “Nope, don’t want it.” In Happykid’s case, she’s allowed “I know I will want this some day, so please take it with you Mom.” </p>
<p>I hadn’t thought of keeping detailed notes about the stuff that goes to Goodwill. Ouch. One more thing to add to the to-do list.</p>
<p>@hunt, but what about in the case of college students who are still dependents and who most likely are not filing itemized tax returns? </p>
<p>We’ve always just kept a common box for charitable donations. Everyone dumps stuff in the box when they clean. Periodically I go through and some things are given to others we know who would have use for it, some given to school, most goes to Goodwill and is inventoried via ItsDeductible and claimed on mine and D’s tax returns. I’d be leaving a lot of money on the table if I didn’t itemize these deductions that the kids can’t. Maybe it was theirs and they owned it, but they’re part of the household so I look at whatever deduction I get as contribution to the household. When they’re on their own - it will be a totally different story.</p>
<p>The kids have been known to give away some of their own things, which is fine by me (D has given away several fancy dresses that no longer fit her - I’m just glad they will be worn again, not worried about money). And some of their things they’ve sold (primarily video games). Again, not a problem. But anything they don’t need and don’t have someone to give it to, or aren’t interested in selling, goes to charity. </p>