How do I decide which of my (younger) adult kids' stuff to keep? Divorcing, downsizing, moving out of house

[Anonymous]

I'm in the process of selling The Marital Residence (tm) and will be downsizing to a much smaller place that may not even end up being in the US. Kids are early 20s, out of college, unsentimental about things from their bedrooms. Their father lives in his girlfriend's house so I'm not even sure that anything that ends up there will not end up getting tossed by the girlfriend who couldn't possibly know which things might have been important to them at some point. My ex is also clueless about this stuff. I appreciate their desire to get rid of pretty much everything but....

I was good about purging and donating when they were young. I held onto a few specific toys that were special to them when they were little, some favorite books, and one small box of baby clothes.

It feels weird to let everything go - I don't want them to turn around in 10 years and say "Mom I was still processing the divorce and didn't know what I actually wanted or would miss when the dust settled."

It would be awesome to pack boxes and tell their dad to deal most of it. He has more space than I will have. He does not have access to this house anymore nor do I want him here to assist with this stuff.

Do I just do the brutal purge as directed by the kids or should I be mindful that some of this stuff might matter later?

[Anonymous]

While not divorced ..We recently sold our family home. Went through everything …Was rough.
I narrowed it all down and let young adult kids have a say ..

I only kept milestone stuff.
First shoes, American girl doll, clothing kids came home from hospital in & one baby blanket. Some elementary projects - mainly the ones kids both had to do & ones that we eventually framed.

It’s bittersweet.

[Anonymous]

Why not take pictures of things but let the objects themselves go? My mom took pictures of things and made a binder of trophy plaques, etc. I was honest when I told her she didn’t need to keep things, but I think they helped her process the divorce.

[Anonymous]

I keep one box for each kid.

[Anonymous]

I would figure out how much square footage you can devote to it and then figure out how many boxes (choose a common size, I'd go with a file box size) you can fit and then dived by number of kids and that's your answer.

Whether you go through it yourself or have kids come and go through it to pare down to what fits in the boxes depends on you and your kids. If they are early 20s and not sentimental they may resist doing it in which case you should do it but just let them know so that if there is a "must keep" item they can tell you.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP, I'm the adult and my parents downsized. Here are the things that I have/had and what I did with them:

1. Clothes my mom hand made for me. I can't let one item go, but the rest I never put on my daughter and don't really care about.
2. Cabbage patch dolls. I don't care about these. My kids didn't care.
3. "My" christmas ornaments. Maybe one that had my name on it. The rest are really garbage and I like the ones my kids made better. They already think they're garbage
4. My glass dolls. Don't care.
5. Bowls and serving pieces that are sentimental and remind me of growing up. I use some of these. They mean a lot.
6. My scrapbooks, awards, trophies, diplomas. These are so cringe. I have them but need to take that next big step and dump them.
7. Family genealogy research. I have this and it's valuable to me.

OP I hope you see this trend. The more universal things that made me "me" are the things I still care about and want to keep or pass down. The momentary stuff from the 80s and 90s. Not so much.

[Anonymous]

If the kids are okay getting rid of it now, they won't regret it later.

People don't want a lot of clutter now. It's out of style.

I would say that it's hard for kids to get sentimental about things they don't remember. My mom tried to foist on me two baby items that belonged to my father. A blue ceramic flower vase shaped like a cradle and a silk baby dress that was his coming home outfit. I made her take the cradle back. I also don't really want my baby shoes with my name on the sole or the not convenient to hold Oneida silverware she bought my younger DC. Everyone loved the chunky set for my older DC so I bought a second set of that for an heirloom so there would be no battling over the duck spoon and fork.

In this day and age, I think digitizing is a way around regrets about not keeping paper. Paper yellows, mildews, etc. Maybe send a box of the best stuff to one of those scanning services and have them give you files. Then when you are retired and/or a grandparent, you can make a gift book for your child/grandchild with some pictures and reminiscences. That would be a nice way to foster happy memories without boxes of stuff.

I also believe that women are trained to care more about this stuff. Especially because mothering involves a lot of checking on stages of development and school-related emotional labor. So you need to clearly separate your emotional attachment from your kids' emotional attachment.

I have a lot of saved and inherited family things. When I think about childhood mementos that I would save in a fire, I can't say where they are in my basement. I would only be able to grab the school pictures album that I keep upstairs and go. So keep that in mind. If you never actually lay hands on the stuff, why do you need more than memories?

[Anonymous]

If you have the money, you could consider sending it to a storage unit until you get through this tough time. I'm usually not for postponing decisions but I'm going through this exactly (except without an ex-DH's girlfriend) and my kids in their 20s seem numb to it but I think they are still processing and there will be sadness about their childhood stuff.

I kept way way way too many toys, clothes, and school stuff because we have a very large home with tons of closets and extra space for it. Downsizing is not what I had planned for at this time in my life. I'm bitter that I'm doing all the work.

[Anonymous]

I've just spent some time helping my 75yo parents downsize, and I was appalled at the stuff they've kept. Most of it should have been donated or tossed years ago.

What I brought home for me to keep: a few photos of me with friends or doing certain memorable things; old photos of my parents as young people; a few documents related to family history; a few really personalized letters of recommendation (easy to store, fun to re-read); good jewelry; my journal from my year abroad; and one (1) storybook. And even though I kept these things, honestly if my parents had tossed them without telling me, I would not have missed them at all.

What I got rid of without caring: toys, clothes and shoes, costumes, blankets and dolls, books, awards and trophies, book reports and school essays, anything related to college applications, and most photos - especially landscapes, bad candids, and posed school portraits.

Baby's first outfit is a keepsake for you to enjoy, and not for your kids. They do not want their own baby clothes, shoes, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep one box for each kid.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have the money, you could consider sending it to a storage unit until you get through this tough time. I'm usually not for postponing decisions but I'm going through this exactly (except without an ex-DH's girlfriend) and my kids in their 20s seem numb to it but I think they are still processing and there will be sadness about their childhood stuff.

I kept way way way too many toys, clothes, and school stuff because we have a very large home with tons of closets and extra space for it. Downsizing is not what I had planned for at this time in my life. I'm bitter that I'm doing all the work.

I was going to also suggest a storage space. But the reality is that you need to hold on to very little so I changed my mind.

Your child is an adult (processing divorce or not), and we all have to make decisions. Maybe they will regret throwing out X. But the reality is they won’t miss the vast majority of what they throw out. And all of us have thrown out an item or two (under totally normal circumstances) that we regret. Just a part of life. It happens. It will be okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep one box for each kid.

+1

OP here - yeah after reading through here I'm going to pare everything down to one file box per kid which I can keep in a closet. They asked for a couple of specific items that I will send to them. They don't live locally so won't be coming to help with this task. I don't want to pay to store stuff no one actually wants. I may saddle their father with a couple of boxes of "you guys might want this stuff down the road"...that is the other option. Photos are all digital. Ok back to The Purge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm in the process of selling The Marital Residence (tm) and will be downsizing to a much smaller place that may not even end up being in the US. Kids are early 20s, out of college, unsentimental about things from their bedrooms. Their father lives in his girlfriend's house so I'm not even sure that anything that ends up there will not end up getting tossed by the girlfriend who couldn't possibly know which things might have been important to them at some point. My ex is also clueless about this stuff. I appreciate their desire to get rid of pretty much everything but....

I was good about purging and donating when they were young. I held onto a few specific toys that were special to them when they were little, some favorite books, and one small box of baby clothes.

It feels weird to let everything go - I don't want them to turn around in 10 years and say "Mom I was still processing the divorce and didn't know what I actually wanted or would miss when the dust settled."

It would be awesome to pack boxes and tell their dad to deal most of it. He has more space than I will have. He does not have access to this house anymore nor do I want him here to assist with this stuff.

Do I just do the brutal purge as directed by the kids or should I be mindful that some of this stuff might matter later?

Well there you go. You already had a good answer.

[Anonymous]

I think it's okay to keep paper prints of portraits and fun vacations. Just make them packed efficiently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep one box for each kid.

Agreed. There's stuff I wish I had now at 40 that in my 20s I didn't think about.