Boomer parents: 'One day, this will all be yours.' Grown children: 'Noooo!'

The Christian Science Monitor ^ | July 25, 2017 | Samantha Bronkar

[Moonman62]

My mother threw away a Lew Alcindor Topps basketball card.

But kept my report cards.

...

I’m sure that caused you grief, but is funny to others. Thanks for sharing.

[dfwgator]

"And I don’t need any of this. I don’t need this stuff, and I don’t need you. I don’t need anything except this. And that’s it and that’s the only thing I need, is this. I don’t need this or this. Just this ashtray. And this paddle game, the ashtray and the paddle game and that’s all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that’s all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that’s all I need. And that’s all I need too. I don’t need one other thing, not one – I need this. The paddle game, and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches, for sure. And this. And that’s all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair."

[Sequoyah101]

It is sad but the parents of boomers and boomers have been on an acquisition spree for the better part of 60 or 70 years. Hoarders do not compare.

Our children have all but ZERO and I do mean ZERO interest in our possessions including the house, the farm, the machinery, the furniture and all. When we are gone there will probably be an auction and it will all be gone in one day. We are seeing quite a bit of land sold or for sale at unrealistic prices by children who have no interest in returning to it or the problems/responsibility of owing it.

As I have said before, a life time of treasures becomes someone else’s junk and problem the day you die. It calls into serious question the sanity of all the acquisition doesn’t it?

I try to myself and encourage my wife to think about what you need when you buy instead of what you want. I would like to go through the barn and the shop and just purge all the things I seldom use but it is awfully hard to do, I might need it someday and usually do!

[Deplorable American1776]

Model trains? Damn... I would have bought it for 250...

[Deplorable American1776]

Let’s see...my parents when they moved to Florida got rid of 60 and 70 hot wheels Matchbox cars...some of those were worth $300+...

[Grampa Dave]

Two decades ago I got a call from my sister, she had to have surgery and couldn’t monitor our mother for a few weeks.

We and she decide that she need to clear out her large apartment to move to the city where my sister lived.

I went there planning on a few days, and it evolved into a full week.

Besides the collection one gets at the age 0f 80, she was a shopping addict. She had more shoes than Imelda and could have stocked a Talbots and Macy’s petite women’s fine clothing store.

We agreed that all pictures, cards and personal stuff would move with her to her new two bedroom apartment. She would have to limit her clothing to two four foot long rods. Since she could no longer wear dress shoes or high heels, all of those would go to good will or their church’s future rummage sales.

We worked out a 30 second drill on her extensive and fine wardrobe. She had 30 seconds to decide to keep an item or donate it. That went to a 5 second drill. People from her church showed up at noon and after 5 pm to pick up what didn’t stay.

Her newspaper collection was several feet high and wide. That went into the recycle bin. She had several China sets, she kept one and every day dishes. A couple of younger female relatives got the china sets and extra silver and simple dining sets. I took her silverware and that was it.

We put all of her photos in bankers boxes to go with her. I took about a pound.

When the moving truck came, my sister took her to her new apartment in her city. I stayed and gave away more stuff to the movers and her church people.

Her stuff still filled up a nice and large one bedroom apartment. My sister and her adult daughter made sure that the junk didn’t accumulate.

Three years later, my Mother moved into a furnished one bedroom in an assisted living facility. My sister, her daughter and a couple of other relatives used a couple of pickups and station wagons to make that move. Good will came for the furniture. She kept her bed and bedroom set for that move.

We have stopped “collecting” about 5 years ago. We have some good art and hand made items. We had our family (all of the future heirs) go through and put their name on the art and or collectible they wanted.

About twice a year one of the local banks have a shred day and you donate to have 3 to 5 banker boxes of paper to shred. We have taken advantage of that and are down to about 3 legal file cabinets of stuff that we still have to keep re IRS and other stuff.

We intend to be carried out feet first and stay here for the rest of our life. There are a couple of good estate sale people to handle what is left. Our good furniture is Thomasville, and what our heirs don’t want should go fast.

The digital picture revolution has limited our actual pictures for the last decade. We text or email pics, that they want or might want.

We still are working on the process.

[Sequoyah101]

So many things in my Parent’s house are like that each thing has a story of how it was gotten or Dad made it. I am the oldest and am cursed with a very good and very early memory. You might say we grew up together in a small way. For most of my life people said I was born 30 something and later going on 40. They were children of the depression and the War years. They grew up with almost nothing. Dad hit the road when he was 13 because there were too many mouths to feed at home. When the War started things got better and worse, his older brother went away for the duration and Dad worked in a defense plant until he could graduate from high school early and then off to the War himself. My Mom worked for 6 or 7 years during the Post War years to save enough for her first year of College determined but unsure of how she would manage the next years but she did and met Dad there. She had more grit and detremination than almost anyone I have ever known. They built a life and family together. I don’t know how to turn my back on all that. They were so proud of all they accomplished from all but nothing and lots of very very hard work.

There was not much to deal with from Momma’s or Dad’s side of the family and the little farm from Territory days is now at the bottom of Grand Lake of the Cherokees.

[Daffynition]

The people I see at estate sales look traumatized as it is ...I truly doubt they have....based on their *deer-in-headlight-look* in their eyes.

A few times I’ve engaged them in convo...and they are overwhelmed; often they have driven in, from out of state, to do the deed. They say, *No body wants them.*

Occasionally I’ll buy a photo if it has an old car, or some place/setting that is recognizable.

[dfwgator]

It breaks my heart to see old photos at estate liquidations. Often in a family, someone will come along in succeeding generations, gets hooked on genealogy, and all this history is lost.:)

One of the scenes in "Schindler's List" that always gets to me is when they show them discarding all the family photos that the victims left behind.

[Chickensoup]

color styles are now neutrals and grey. If I see another baby decked out in grey I think I will scream.

[Chickensoup]

CHILDREN this is what happens when you don’t take care of your teeth!

[Chickensoup]

My Dad and my 22 year old son. and he is adopted!

[Chickensoup]

My mother threw away a Lew Alcindor Topps basketball card.

I haven’t heard that name in years. The boys in the neighborhood said I always threw my leg out like Lew Alcindor.

[Chickensoup]

My mother threw away a Lew Alcindor Topps basketball card.

I haven’t heard that name in years. The boys in the neighborhood said I always threw my leg out like Lew Alcindor.

[Freedom56v2]

After my last parent passed, I was tasked with cleaning out the house and selling it. We decided to have an estate sale. I had cleaned out much of the worthless junk while dad was hospitalized found all kinds of “gems”—cereal from the 80s, etc....

My parents had a number of fairly valuable antiques, so we went the estate sale route...As I had cleaned out a lot of what estate sales make their money on...the box of toothpicks, etc. so I decided to do estate sale myself...

I hired an appraiser—not to officially do appraisals on specific items, but to spend a few hours walking thru the house and giving me some general price ranges...What is valuable, what is not, etc. Paid around $70/hour for that service.

Then I had relatives go thru and take what they wanted.

A lot of work to price everything, and I needed some family/friends to assist (there were 40 people waiting outside the front door at 8 a.m.).

Turned out well, made some money and found good homes for things...

Guess our family was a bit of an anomaly as far as this article goes as I took a number of antiques, and my kids did want some relics to remember their grand parents, etc.

[Albion Wilde]

I’m wondering what to do with all the family photos that go back more than 100 years.

Buy a scanner; scan them all; get one of those digital photo frames that rotates through the images when you turn it on. Put the whole collection on thumbdrives for other relatives, and ask them to pay a little towards the costs of the scanner and the thumbdrive; or just give it as their next birthday/holiday gift. We did this for a relative after her stroke and she loves the photo slideshow. She can't manage holding an album and leafing through the pages any more.

[Albion Wilde]

I couldn’t part with my mom’s fine china even though I had my own, until I met a disabled veteran and his new bride, who had no big wedding, lots of challenges with the VA healthcare system, and not much money. Now they have my mom’s china and I am happy!

[Daffynition]

I go to a lot of estate sales; my budget allows me 25¢; rarely will I spend more.

I have to find out the legality of taking photos inside people’s homes w/out permission. Sometimes, I’m at a sale where the home has not been lived in for a very long time. Perhaps the oldster has passed on or is in a nursing home. Everything is just as they left it.

It’s so poignant to me; orthopedic shoes, tucked under the edge of a bed, right where they slipped out of them. Out-of-fashion clothing hanging in the closet. It grabs me as a moment frozen in time. I wish I had some photo skills to take some pics ...I think they would make a great subject/theme.

Sorry, I get sappy occasionally.

[RooRoobird20]

What a beautiful story about the veteran and his bride! I need to keep what you did in mind, it was just wonderful.

When I first got married we had nothing except college diplomas and the clothes on our backs. It never occurred to me to register for china, crystal, sterling etc., my friends and family couldn’t afford such expensive gifts.

Now here I am years later with all my fancy stuff, who’d have thunk it LOL?

[Albion Wilde]

The DailyMail runs stories about houses “frozen in time” fairly often. Some have not been lived in for decades, and like you said, the personal items are still where they left them. I imagine some of these had to be staged a little bit, since there would be lots of dust and rotted food after all that time. But often the photos show the long strips of wallpaper that have fallen half off the wall, the piles of shattered celing plaster and the decorative cobwebs.