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

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

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[quote=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?[/quote]

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