I do have several pieces of inherited furniture, because if I’ve upgraded from starving student to mid-American garage sale, it might as well be quality.
A couple of book shelves, a desk.
What I hate is my father trying to push items onto me “for my children”. An inflated valuation on items both emotional and financial.
I think we’re seeing the result of a near post-scarcity economy in the U.S. I don’t care about the stuff - I and my children like experiences - arcades, classes, activities, eating out.
I think post scarcity has a lot to do with it. It used to be a household only bought a few truly “solid” pieces of furniture in their life, the rest was inherited, and then all that was passed down. Now a days solid furniture isn’t that hard to find, my house is mostly stocked with really good highly durable stuff (really should replace my computer desk, got one narrow bookshelf that has proved a challenge to replace with real wood, that’s about it), we no longer need to wait for people to die to get the good stuff, and subsequently by the time people are dying we don’t need it. That personal piece of family history just takes up too much space, more than folks want to commit to “remember” generations of family they never met.