Why do grownups like to throw away their kids' things?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I never got this: grown-ups ENJOYING throwing away their kids’ (or other people’s kids’) belongings. Comic books, baseball cards, odd souvenirs. What’s their thinking?

I had parents who were reasonably respectful of me, but I had one aunt (who lived downstairs from us) who got her hands on my comic book collection when I wasn’t looking, and OUT it went. Why? “They were just joke books,” she explained. OK, but why? They weren’t bothering you. “Don’t get so upset.”

Another time, after my parents died, I went to live in Europe and stored several boxes in my uncle’s basement (not the one married to that aunt) and when I got back to the states after a few months abroad, all my stuff (including a baseball card collection I was very fond of, worth several thousands of dollars at the time, and untold thousands now) had been pitched out into the trash.

Later my mother-in-law came across some magazines I had in my suitcase while staying in her house and --you guessed it–into the trash they went. They were Playboys, not especially valuable, and not offensive to her sensibilities (she had nude artwork throughout her home) but no questions asked, it was mine and then it was garbage. (She denied throwing these half-dozen magazines away, but who else would have gone into my suitcase and pitched them?)

None of these women knew each other, or came from very similar ethnic backgrounds or any other common cultural tie I can think of–what was going on in their minds, do you suppose, or the minds of adults who treat young people’s property as if they had any right to dispose of it?

2

I’ve got three kids.

Stuff that they’ve outgrown and don’t use anymore takes up a lot of space. My space, in my home, which I pay for.

Yes, I’m going to get rid of stuff as they outgrow it. Some will be given away. Some will inevitably be thrown out.

And as to grown children, not living in the parental home, hey, get your own storage space. If you’re an adult, you shouldn’t be expecting your parents to provide free storage for you. Pay for a storage locker somewhere.

That’s part of being an adult, you know? You have to pay for stuff that children get for free.

Kids have to grow up sometime.

3

I feel you. I came home one weekend from college to find out my mom sold a lot of my stuff for $35 in a yard sale and threw the rest out. I didn’t want the $35, I wanted my stuff. Baseball cards, posters, my army men that my cousin gave me when I was 8 and the records I didn’t take to college.

I think since I was the youngest it was more about her getting older and it was a way to transition into having an empty nest. She also did the same thing when my dad passed away. Threw out his discharge papers from the Navy, marriage certificate and social security card. Now 20 years later I am having to go get these records in case she needs to go into a nursing home with veterans spouse benefits.

My parents had a huge home, my stuff didn’t take up much room at all and they never used my bedroom and closet space again for anything other than me coming home.

4

Really? I can understand that if, for example, my relative had told me “I ain’t running a storage unit for your crap, sonny. Rent out storage while you;re in France.” But I told been told “Sure, kid, plenty of room in my basement. Be happy to store your stuff while you’re gone.” That’s weird.

In my own house, as a boy, I could have understood it if my aunt had said to me “I’m going to throw your stupid joke books away” and I could have made alternative plans (and thought less of that aunt).

Not sure how you justify my mother in law going through my suitcase to throw out the magazines. (I wasn’t travelling with them–I had picked them up at a used bookstore while in her city and was planning to add them to my collection back home.) Is that your idea of being a good host?

Sure glad I never had you for a parent, I will tell you that.

5

Agree that the storer should give some reasonable notice before tossing stuff. Weird and inconsiderate that they didn’t.

Can we assume that the third time’s a charm, and you are now responsible for all of your own crap?

IMO&E - decluttering is one of the true joys of your kids moving out.

6

I find that behavior loathsome, for what it’s worth. It’s common, though, for adults to believe that children’s possessions are less valuable to them, and certainly just junk taking up space adults could put THEIR junk in. It devalues childrens’ rights and their feelings, and what could be more common than that?

I did make my daughter go through her 18 years of artwork she had filled our attic with and consolidate the keepers into portfolios, which we then transported 3000 miles and stored in our new attic. Also took her boxes of beloved dog-eared children’s books, the rocking horse her grandpa made her, and probably a lot of other things. If she ever gets a house of her own – presently she lives in an apartment – I may ask her to store them there. But I would no more throw away her stuff than that of a dear friend who has no place to leave things.

7

My kids seem quite happy to have me as a parent, so I’m just fine with whatever you think.

But who knows, if they move off to another country and leave a bunch of stuff lying around my apartment taking up space that could be put to better use, something may happen that changes their mind.

8

Growing up, we had garage sales. Mom told me any of my stuff that I sell, I can keep the money.

So I had plenty incentive to self regulate my accumulation of stuff.

9

Agreed–if the kid has moved out, and is of adult age, you might consider it 'abandoned property" (though I would still ask first before pitching) but I’m talking about when the kid is still a kid, or when he’s left stuff specifically as a young adult (I went to Europe when I was 20) that you’ve agreed to store, or is a guest in your home (we were staying with my mother-in-law for a week).

10

A few things at play here.

  1. There is definitely a generation gap in what is considered disposable ephemera and rare collectible.

  2. Parents often forget that their grown children have agency of ownership. For years, everything you thought you “owned” was paid for by your parents, so they might think the disposal of those things are at their discretion.

  3. This is a personal observation - As I get older, collectibles and keepsakes start to mean less to me and are easier to part with. I can imagine a parent assuming their children won’t miss those “childish” things any more than they would.

11

“Loathsome?” Seems a bit extreme, but, well, okay, to each their own.

Those of us who live in apartments, and don’t have attics and basements and sheds (let alone multiple homes), learn to be very practical when it comes to allocating space for stuff.

Yes, I would expect, and will expect, my adult children to make their own storage arrangements. It’s a practical necessity. Space taken up in my home by children’s stuff (especially children who have moved out of the home) IS space that I could put my stuff in. It’s a zero-sum game.

12

I bought and paid for much of the things she sold. Kids can get jobs and make their own money to buy things that parents would not. Like my cherished Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and Farrah Fawcett posters.

13

It has always amazed me what some folks think of as “junk” and what they consider “valuable”. Old model catalogs I treasured and pored over as a kid? Kept carefully on a shelf in a folder? Tossed. Teacups in a display case? Carefully wrapped, moved and stored for 30 years. Now when downsizing my mothers place those teacups are worth… nothing. If she had kept the catalogs instead, she could have sold them for about $1500.

14

I bet some of it falls to the crossover of A) the urge to declutter and B) the reality that it’s always easier to declutter someone else’s crap than your own.

Like, you notice that a closet is so full of stuff that getting things in and out has become a hassle. Time to get rid of some stuff, yes? But then you are faced with that pair of jeans you’ve never really worn that much – because they got a bit too tight – buy, hey, you’re still planning to lose that ten pounds. Some day. And that jacket is a bit shabby, but it’s the one you always wore when you and mother went on antiquing trips, such good times, and now she’s dead but every time you see it you remember… and you slide that hangar along the rod.

On the other hand, there’s that ridiculously faded t-shirt of hubby’s, the one with the picture of that one hit wonder band that he probably hasn’t listened to in twenty years. Maybe he has really fond memories of that weekend he saw them, and the girl he hooked up with there…but I don’t know that, and it wouldn’t resonate with me the same way anyway. Toss it into the trash pile. Now, about that ridiculous collection of SIX flannel shirts, all with paint drips or rips or stains. Okay, they’re his “work around the house” shirts, but how can he possibly need SIX of them? And he’s constantly acquiring new ‘work’ shirts given that things inevitably happen to previously ‘good’ shirts… Let’s keep only the best two of the lot, right?

On that particular subject, I’m sure it varies among couples, but for about 40 years now his wardrobe has pretty much been my responsibility. I’m the one who washes stuff and puts it away, I’m the one who sees a sock has a hole and tosses it, (and buys another pack of socks or undies or whatever when I see his supply is getting low.) I pretty much bought all those flannel shirts, and the casual tees, and when they were a standard of life I bought all those white button down shirts, too. (Not in the ‘it was my money so my stuff’ sense, just that I’m the one who walked through the store, hunted down the right sizes, found styles I thought he’d like, waited in the checkout line, got them home and all.) Even stuff he picked out, like coats and suits, I was pretty much there, helping him to decide on colors (he’s somewhat color blind, not really, but insensitive to finer gradations in hues) plus I was pretty much always the one practically dragging him to the store to get them, because he absolutely hated shopping for clothes.

So… I guess I feel a sense of ownership over his clothes in a way he’d never feel about mine, and thus feel ‘entitled’ to trash his stuff when it seems reasonable to me. At least I know about some stuff that ‘matters’ to him, the insanely old bathrobe he wants to clutch around him when he’s feeling ill, his old boy scout badge thingy, and such, and I’d NEVER touch them. But ordinary clothes? It honestly wouldn’t occur to me to ask before I toss out that pair of boxers with the dying elastic.

I’ve never had children, but I’d guess something along the same lines happens with old toys and the like, a permanent ‘sort of ownership’ of them that gives them the idea they have the right to say whether the stuff stays or goes. Particularly if the whatever has been sitting abandonned in your house for years and years after the kid has gone. If those Star Wars toys matter to him so much, why aren’t they sitting on a shelf in HIS home?

15

Two different questions going on here:

  1. If you agree to store something for someone or are a guest in someone’s home, don’t throw personal items away with asking or giving a heads up. At least alert your adult kids the time for free storage is coming to an end, so they can make plans.

  2. Parents enjoying decluttering because after some 20 odd years managing, nagging, cleaning up, buying, and in general having kid stuff strewn about your home, it just feels so good.

But, see #1. Communicate and be respectful while you’re doing it.

16

So it wasn’t just me then?

17

We had an old thread here where somebody was talking about some relatives who cleaned out another relative’s house after he died. The dead relative had apparently had a very sizeable magazine collection, including a complete run of Playboy magazine (going all the way back to the first issue). The relatives didn’t care; they just wanted to clear out the house so they could sell it. So everything went into the garbage.

People in the thread pointed out that the magazine collection they casually threw away was worth several times what the house was worth.

18

Really? “Loathsome?” Parents who cannot provide storage space to adult children, and do not do so, are “loathsome?”

I get that most people here perhaps are not city-dwellers, and probably not apartment-dwellers. Me, I’ve never lived in a house in my life. Neither did my father. And his parents got off the boat from Ireland and got an apartment in Washington Heights, where he grew up.

But it’s “loathsome” to not allocate a part of one’s home for adult children to use as storage, even though the single most valuable thing here in NYC, a huge dividing line between rich and poor, is square footage?

But, sure, “loathsome.” :roll_eyes:

Maybe, maybe, get some perspective. Not everybody has attics and basements and sheds and spare bedrooms and so on. Maybe make an effort to understand how other people live, and the physical limitations of what’s available to them in terms of storage space and the cost thereof.

19

It’s not the act of throwing away things that is “loathsome” per se, it’s doing without caring if the items are meaningful to them. If you never ask your child to get their stuff or warn them that you will throw away unclaimed property before you do, then it’s is pretty crappy of you (generic “you”). I care about the things my kids care about, and try not to hurt them.

Reading the OP, he’s upset because thing’s were thrown away without anyone caring if they were important and asking first. I don’t blame anyone for being upset under those circumstances and I do think it telegraphs a level of disrespect. Maybe loathsome is a strong word, but it can be legitimately hurtful.

But once you let someone know the ground rules, then it’s on them.

20

My folks didn’t throw our stuff out. It got sold!

My Mother is a rummage sale fanatic. She loves having them. Not to make money but because she loves to meet and talk with people who come to them. Shes kind of a social butterfly. That part is one of the endearing things about her. Taking our shit to sell wasn’t.

She drove us nuts when we were kids. Going through our rooms looking for stuff she could put out. If she sold our stuff we’d get the cash, like I said, it wasn’t about the money to her.

But we always had to go out to her tables and take our stuff back before she sold it! One time she sold a good fishing rod and reel I had for 75 cents. I wanted to clout her one. She sold a lot of good albums, comic books, baseball cards, even a mini bike once. All things me and my siblings never would have parted with.

Anyway, whenever something went missing we didn’t assume it got thrown away. We went out and checked the tables in the garage.