How can I get my family to stop pawning off useless crap on me?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Oh, geez. Stuff. My mother is the Queen of Stuff, random stuff. She likes to make sure that I have plenty of Stuff, but if I don’t want it? Surely, someone else wants Stuff, so let’s pack it away to save for such an occasion, and acquire more stuff, because someone might want it. I go through cycles with my mom: I’ll accept Stuff, and donate it (usually back) to Goodwill, just to clear out, for a few months; and then I’ll go back to the usual “no, I don’t need any Stuff, I already have too much Stuff.” Or Ma will acquire Stuff for its resale value, but she never sells it. I’ve set her up with Ebay and Paypal accounts and made sure she knows how to upload her photos. I’ve tried to set her up with a booth at a local vintage/antique store. I’ve added her to Facebook groups that facilitate selling Stuff. So far, nothing, except piling up more Stuff.

And then there’s my mother-in-law. She claims to be downsizing. For five years, ‘most every time we visit, I’m asked whether I’d like any of her Stuff. After a couple of years of this, I actually named one thing that I really admired and could use, which also seemed to go unused at the in-laws’: a pretty little walnut drop-leaf table that sits in the corner collecting dust. I was told the history of the object (apparently, someone who couldn’t pay a medical bill and wouldn’t accept charity gave it to my late grandmother-in-law as her fee for treatment.) And then there was a vague “…but maybe his son wants it. I should offer it to him…” A year or so later, I was being pressed again to please take some Stuff. I said that I admired a little radio that sits in the guest room. I was told why I couldn’t have that. I just smile and change the subject now, when this conversation begins. (Also, for the past five years, I’m reminded at each visit that I need to pick which set of china I want - there are three, all packed up and unused. Thus far, I’ve never seen the first teacup. I’ve also been nagged about choosing some of my late grandmother-in-law’s jewelry for myself, and for my daughters. I’ve never seen any of the jewelry, either!)

And then there’s my father-in-law. He has a portion of the family farm, including the old house, the guest house, and several barns. Four generations and 108 acres of meticulously-hoarded Stuff. A couple of years ago, we were looking for a dresser for the pre-schooler’s bedroom. I suggested (privately) to my husband that he ask his dad whether we could get one from the guest house - I’m not exaggerating when I say that there are at least 20 dressers and chests of drawers out there. That suggestion was met with a no - “That wouldn’t be a good idea.” Apparently, that shit has to sit there and rot, instead of being used by a granddaughter? (And no, it’s not because someone else might want it. My husband is his father’s only child and heir.) I guess we’ll get to sort out that shit at some point down the road, when we no longer have any use for it. Meanwhile, FIL has given us three things from the farm - a helmet and a dish that my grandfather-in-law acquired during his WWII service (yay, valuable to my husband as heirlooms,) and a butter churn (WTF?!)

And Grandmother… ah, my evil Grandmother. She spends her days trying to pit her daughters and granddaughters against one another by promising her jewelry to this person or that. None of us gives a happy damn. I’ve privately made it clear to my mom and aunts that, unless someone else covets it, the only things I’d like from Grandmother’s home are her pots and pans - because I’ll use them, and because Grandmother’s cooking is the only fond memory I have of the woman. But if someone else wants it? Take it. I have enough Stuff. I’m not going to argue with anyone on earth about Stuff.

Frankly, when I look at all of the Stuff that my husband and I are going to have to deal with in the future, I have visions of matches, hot dogs, and marshmallows…

42

That’s what I’m saying - dropping it off at charity is a burden. Putting it in the trash is a burden. It often comes in via my husband or children when I’m not even home.

She isn’t TRYING to harm me, she is showing me love the way she knows - by passing me things. But to me, things are burdensome. People are not. I like the burden of people, I don’t like the burden of things to which I don’t choose to be attached.

And I have clued her in. I now get photos. As I said in my first post. I know she is thinking of me and she gets to show her love of me by showing me stuff I would like, without me needing to possess the stuff. However, it took twenty years for her to understand. Unfortunately, she hasn’t yet clued into that I have to take care of the stuff she gives my husband and kids - and they don’t toss it either - which is how we get basement day.

There are a few things going on - she is a collector for whom memories are triggered by possessions. I’m someone who spent my childhood moving around the country with a mother who is a little bit of a clean freak - every extra possession you had needed to be cared for - and packed - so you kept your possessions to a minimum. However, I’m also my father’s child, and my father’s mother was someone who believed gifts must be treasured and displayed - for twenty five years my mother had the ugliest ashtray that she hated because my father wouldn’t let her throw out “a wedding gift from my mother’s best friend.” (One day, my little sister broke it). The combination of my father’s needs to please his mother along with my mother’s own neurosis about stuff is passed to me :slight_smile: So everyone carries burdens when it comes to this stuff - some time and effort related, some emotional baggage.

43

Put out the word that you are trying to downsize your stuff. Say it before someone is trying to hand you things. You want to cut out the impulse before the item is purchased or set aside for you in some way.

Say something like “Oh, I looked around this morning to find my screwdriver and I couldn’t believe how much STUFF I’ve accumulated! So, I’ve decided to take so much stuff to Goodwill. From now on, every item that comes in will require an item to go out. Don’t let me buy stuff/take stuff home!”

If people think NOT giving you things is helpful, most people will stop. Like Manda JO says, for a lot of people giving things is a sign of love, but you can turn that around so that they are showing you love by not giving you things, as a way to help you out.

44

I’ll remember the next time someone gets me a birthday gift I don’t like (notably, because they never bothered to get to know me enough to find out my likes and dislikes) that I should say right then to their face, “No thanks, I don’t want this.” and put it back in their hands. You know what’ll happen with some people. Drama. Hurt feelings. All the stuff politeness was made to avoid. Except some people take advantage of that politeness to the point of breaking. Often it’s a family member, which adds an extra layer of responsibility. It’s subtle pressure, all right. Don’t tell me we’re not socially pressured to treat our families with deference even if they act up a bit, because family and all that.

Your advice always ends up telling us (“us” being people that are trying to defuse some social nicety or other) to do something socially clueless that would make the problem worse, with an admonishment to just stop talking to people forever anyway since we have different feelings than you. Why can’t we just buck the social niceties and go for candor…but we’re the bad guys for wanting to do so. It’s just so…inflexible. You never seem to see the other side of the argument - that maybe sometimes acts one person sees as “good” is seen as “bad” by someone else. Just because gift-giving is supposedly a “good” thing doesn’t make it always that way. There are plenty of people who will whine later, “But I gave you some money as a gift without you asking for it, and I just want you to do this thing for me now, you are so ungrateful” - and that’s their MO. It’s done on purpose. You hear about parents doing that to their kids. Sometimes “it’s the thought that counts” isn’t good enough past a certain point.

45

I can only theorize that someone with such rigid ideas about daily life and relationships is either too young to have much experience and perspective, or suffers from some deficit that impairs his social interactions.

46

I do have to rent a dumpster periodically, but mostly due to my own habit of collecting junk and frequent home improvements. I’ll have to rent one sooner now because my mother is finally moving from the house she’s been in for nearly 50 years. However, I neither pawn nor palm my own junk off on my kids. The really annoying part was driving several hundred miles to pick up the junk my mom and dad wouldn’t throw away and kept bugging me to take.

47

You are failing to see the side of the person giving you the unwanted goods. I’m certainly not telling you you “should” hand people back poorly-chosen birthday gifts. If you think someone is actually “taking advantage of” someone else’s “politeness” by giving them unwanted gifts, then that person is not a well-meaning-but-clueless person trying but failing to please you. They are someone trying to take advantage of you for their own nefarious purposes, and thus may be treated accordingly.
This is extremely unlikely to be the case however. Nearly all attempts to pawn off useless crap have no malicious motive.
You seem invested in this being an unsolvable problem. Obviously if you won’t tell someone that you want them to change their behavior, even the slim possibility that they will try cannot happen, and if you refuse to change your own or accept the situation as-is, there is nothing left to do but complain, so carry on I guess.

48

Oh for God’s sake, it’s his Grandma. You really think it’s thoughtlessness or maliciousness? Some people just have a hard time seeing stuff junked.

49

Wrong on all three counts, but thanks for the thought!

Most people go through life thinking they are limited and stymied because they “have to” do certain things and “can’t” do others, even though only these beliefs make it so. They must work a job they hate because they “can’t afford” to quit, for example. They “must” fill their basement with crap they don’t want and it’s someone else’s fault. They try to change other people into something more convenient for themselves, criticize their own faults and shortcomings in others, and only pretend to try to see others’ viewpoints to seek justification for their own. Attempting to take a more objective view is my preferred viewpoint, but perhaps you prefer a more “morally flexible” approach.

50

Agreed. Have you even tried to ask someone to stop giving you stuff?

My mom always used to try to give me lots of leftover food after a visit, and she was really pushy about it too. My protestations of “No thanks, I’m sure we won’t eat it” were met with a “well, you might…take it! Take it!”

Finally, one day, I said to her “So let me get this straight. You want me to take this food, put it in a bag, take it downstairs on the elevator, set it in the lobby while I go get the car, put it in the car, drive it allll the way out to New Jersey, then take it out of the car, carry it down the block and up the stairs to my place, put it in the refrigerator, wait a couple of weeks until it rots, put it into a garbage bag, and walk it back down the stairs and put it into the dumpster?”

She laughed her butt off and said “well, when you put it THAT way…” :smiley:

She still offers me food when I leave, and I eagerly accept the things that I think we’ll eat, and she takes “no” for an answer on the rest.

Not everybody is as sensible as my mom, but you could at least ASK them to stop pressing stuff on you. (More politely than I did, of course)

51

Yep. But you don’t solve your own problems by pawning it off on someone else so they can throw it away.

Part of the issue that has come about with my mother in law is that as she realized I’m not sentimental, I got her baggage so I CAN dispose of it. But it comes with a price - She can’t admit what she is attached to or not, and so I was supposed to mind read. And the stuff she was attached to - I was asked to return if I wasn’t using it. It hasn’t REALLY been given to me at all. When I admitted it had gone into the charity box a year ago…

I’ve had her damn electronic keyboard four times. I don’t want it, she “doesn’t have room for it” - so it comes to me for my son to play - but he doesn’t even play it (he’ll play the piano I have once in a while. So it comes into the house, goes into the basement, then she wants it, it leaves the house, then three months later it comes back into the house, so that the space it is using can be reused for a loom, or old books, or three boxes of yarn from a garage sale.

52

My parents gave me a falling apart couch and falling apart wagon wheel tea caddy. When I moved out of my apartment I left them by the curb.

My brother ‘told on me’ and my parents were upset because it was such great stuff. I said I called the salvation army and they wouldn’t even take the couch. Then I got a lecture about how spoiled those charities are or something (I didn’t quite follow).

Anyway, the upshot is they no longer give me their old crap.

Thumbs up!

53

OT: Oh, god. My mother and sister complained to me once about how there must not be any poor people because the St. Vincent de Paul Society didn’t want to come pick up two broken refrigerators.

54

This reminds me of my Great-Aunt and her really bad holiday “cookies.” She would make a TON of them and every year we would all try to think of clever ways to avoid getting stuck with them. Folks would keep “forgetting” their tin and someone else would helpfully remind them just as they were stepping out of the door. One year, I took our tin, divided it up between all the other tins, and then filled it with the cookies and snacks that everyone else had brought to the dinner (for weight). Yeah, sort of douchey. But my folks seemed to overlook it out of relief. When my great-aunt asked if we enjoyed it, mom truthfully told her, “Hypno ate the whole tin himself. He must have liked the contents!”