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[quote=Anonymous]I want to make clear that this is a mild rant, not a serious problem. But I want to vent. My parents are in their mid 70s and they have a lovely house and lovely things. When my grandparents passed away 10-15 years ago some furniture and silver and china and other objects were earmarked for my sister and me, but as we were in grad school and college at the time it naturally went to my parents till we were properly "settled" someday. Flash forward to this year both my sister and I have respectively finally "settled" after nearly 20 years of schooling, living overseas or in small apartments in NYC and finally have houses big enough and our parents reminded us that we had these inheritances waiting for us, so we both gladly took them. And I was also doubly pleased because it would liberate our parents as their house was getting a wee bit crowded, even with lovely old things. And I commented to my mother how much more spacious it now looked and she fully agreed.

Then what does she do?

Go out and buy new antiques to replace the ones my sister and I just took! Ma! You're 73! You do not need more antique chests of drawers or side tables no matter how pretty they may be! You still have an entire house filled with lovely tables and cabinets! You have sideboards crammed with china and crystal and silver that hasn't seen the light of day in decades. I know it's good quality, I know it belonged to great-grandma, but you do not need a dozen crystal platters or innumerable silver bowls.

Meanwhile, DH, who grew up in what might as well have been an Ethan Allen showroom, parents are still looking at getting new furniture :roll:

Neither of our parents would ever qualify as hoarders by any stretch of the imagination, but it does seem that the boomer generation are so very attached to possessions and having large houses and filling them up and they just can't let go of things. I'm not asking for solutions here, I'm just venting because I love not having a lot of things, I appreciate having nice things and inherited pieces, but I refuse to crowd my house with things that will just never get used only to pass them on to the next generation who will also never use them! Is this attachment to possessions a generational thing, or is it a natural aging thing?

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