# Why do grownups like to throw away their kids' things? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 28, 2021, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091 "2021-05-28T14:08:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/21 "2021-05-28T16:28:42Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > It’s not the act of throwing away things that is “loathsome” per se, it’s doing without caring if the items are meaningful. If the adult child just left it behind for years and didn’t bother to retrieve the items, they haven’t themselves exhibited that they feel the items are meaningful. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/22 "2021-05-28T16:30:47Z")
Yes… not sure that contradicts the specific point I was responding too. Still I think a “head’s up, I’m throwing your stuff away” isn’t too much to expect in a relationship between people who like each other. ETA, more reasons I hate this reply system. Maybe it was not clear I was responding to the post above mine. ---
**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/23 "2021-05-28T16:34:28Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > 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? Not giving an adult child free storage is not loathsome. Throwing out an adult child’s belongings without a warning and chance to retrieve said items might be loathsome depending on the circumstances. Just because I didn’t take it with me into my first small apartment doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t value it. > [@RickJay](#): > > If the adult child just left it behind for years and didn’t bother to retrieve the items, they haven’t themselves exhibited that they feel the items are meaningful. I do not think this can be stated generally. It all depends on circumstances. Please give your child plenty of warning before tossing anything they might consider valuable. “When you visit next week, any of that stuff in the attic you want to keep needs to leave with you” is sufficient. It’s different with small children though. Given half a chance, my young daughter would save every scrap of paper she ever set a pen on and every piece of clothing she ever wore. She’s excessively sentimental (I say this as a very sentimental person) and keeping absolutely everything is impractical. Sometimes, a parent has to make an executive decision on things. This should become less true as a child ages. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/24 "2021-05-28T16:37:42Z")
> [@tofor](#): > > I do not think this can be stated generally. It all depends on circumstances. Please give your child plenty of warning before tossing anything they might consider valuable. “When you visit next week, any of that stuff in the attic you want to keep needs to leave with you” is sufficient. I agree of course. I have a suspicion, though, that it’s actually that not often the case that valuable stuff is tossed completely without warning, and I suspect the perceived value of many things tossed tends to, shall we say, expand the more the story is told. I know that’s 100% the case with my best friend; the value of the stuff he alleges his Mom threw away grows by twenty-five percent every time I hear the story. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/25 "2021-05-28T16:46:57Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > Really? “Loathsome?” Parents who cannot provide storage space to adult children, and do not do so, are “loathsome?” Did you read the OP? This wasn’t parents throwing out stuff their kids had left in storage in their house. This was an aunt who didn’t live in the same house deciding to throw out a kid’s comic book collection. Or a mother-in-law throwing out stuff she found in somebody’s suitcase. That’s not just cleaning up the house; that’s hostility. I probably would have called it disturbing rather than loathsome but I have no problem saying it’s wrong. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/26 "2021-05-28T16:53:24Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I agree of course. I have a suspicion, though, that it’s actually that not often the case that valuable stuff is tossed completely without warning, and I suspect the perceived value of many things tossed tends to, shall we say, expand the more the story is told. I know that’s 100% the case with my best friend; the value of the stuff he alleges his Mom threw away grows by twenty-five percent every time I hear the story And some of it is only valuable now because so many parents threw it out way back when. My husband frequently complains about how the baseball cards his mother threw out umpteen years ago would be worth a fortune today. But if everyone who has that complaint still had those cards, they wouldn’t be valuable at all. About the warning- I wouldn’t get rid of my son’s stuff without warning him and giving him a date only because I don’t want the arguments that would happen. But I’ve been telling him for five years he’s got to get some of the stuff he’s been storing in my house out of here - he knows I want it out and he hasn’t done anything so I wonder how important it really is to him. Not enough to take up space in his own apartment or to pay for a storage unit. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/27 "2021-05-28T17:03:18Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > 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. Decluttering isn’t loathsome. I’m a fanatic at it myself. I could happily live in a tiny house. Even a Tiny House ™. Throwing away other people’s possessions without even giving them notice? Not okay in my book. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/28 "2021-05-28T17:06:36Z")
Yeah, my feeling (especially with my mother-in-law) was that there was some hostility there (though she and I had a good relationship). That’s what I was driving at: Saintly Loser seems to see this as purely a space and ownership issue, but I think there’s something psychological going on here that I don’t understand. In none of these cases was space a priority, and in any event a simple “I was thinking of throwing out that box” or “…those magazines” would have gotten a very prompt response out of me. Oh, btw, the aunt who pitched my comics DID live in the same house (we had a two-family house, and my comics were in a box in the basement. She understood that we, my family, stored stuff there, and she knew that the comics weren’t hers, She never EVER would have thrown out anything of my parents. This was a purely a grownups and kids kind of thing.) ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/29 "2021-05-28T17:07:35Z")
Way back in 1980 I bought the pinball game [_Card Whiz_](https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=447), one of the last [electro mechanicals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLIpXgJafBA) when everyone was going to the fancier stuff. In 1998 when I moved to a small place there wasn’t enough room for it so it wound up in my brother’s upstairs rec room. Both his boys were in high school so it was a good idea at the time. Flash forward to 2018. The boys moved out long ago, his wife is dead, and he’s intending on moving to a smaller place while renting out the old one. He casually mentioned the renter was glad to find the pool table “and the pin game” would be left behind and promised to take it when he left. “You just casually offered him about a thousand bucks!” I told him. “Of _course_ he;ll be happy to take it.” A couple friends and I moved it back down the stairs and drove away with it. I had _two_ copies of the schematic and the manual with it, all of which he lost, but I got those replaced for about $75. During the move he lost about $500 worth of DVDs I’d lent him. I don’t lend them to hi any more either. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/30 "2021-05-28T17:28:57Z")
> [@tofor](#): > > It’s different with small children though. Given half a chance, my young daughter would save every scrap of paper she ever set a pen on and every piece of clothing she ever wore. She’s excessively sentimental (I say this as a very sentimental person) and keeping absolutely everything is impractical. Sometimes, a parent has to make an executive decision on things. This should become less true as a child ages. I think a lot of conflict between parents and (grown or older) children has to do with the difficulty in adjusting to changes like this. My kids are little, and we get rid of stuff they’ve outgrown or no longer play with (or just junk that they accumulate because they’re little pack rats) all the time. They generally don’t notice that it’s gone, but if we made them pick through things it would be an emotional ordeal. Obviously, we _shouldn’t_ keep doing this forever. As they get older they can make more of those decisions themselves. But that transition is _hard_ (I’m assuming. I haven’t really gotten there yet as a parent). It’s the same reason that your mom tells you to put a sweater on when you’re 35 and headed out the door. Like, obviously at that age you’re capable of dressing yourself, but it’s hard to change the mental patterns of decades of experience with your children as barely-functional people who regularly put their pants on backwards. ---
**Author:** ![Skypist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skypist/32/169_2.png) [@Skypist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skypist)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/31 "2021-05-28T17:30:23Z")
Gosh, this is so much like my mom. She is a fanatic about throwing stuff out - especially other people’s stuff! I get that when I was a kid some stuff would have to be cleared out as it was outgrown, and she probably didn’t think I’d do it myself without a fuss so just did sneak attacks on her own. It’s actually kind of given me a complex because I’d go to use something and it’d be gone. “I didn’t think you were using it anymore,” she’d say, or just deny it. The weirdest thing is probably how she would get hold of my notebooks and tear some pages out and throw them away but leave the rest of the actual notebook. Come on! That wasn’t decluttering as the actual object was still there! Just a couple of pages lighter but still there. And it was a notebook that was in my room, not left out elsewhere. I think she thought my little play scribbles were just meaningless and I wouldn’t notice they were gone. One time I was eating a biscuit and stepped away for a moment to get a drink. She threw the biscuit away! I promise I was gone for moments only. I have grown up to be a pack rat with issues. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/32 "2021-05-28T18:05:46Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > 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.” 🙄 > > 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. I live in a NYC apartment. Yes, throwing away another adult’s property **without asking them or giving them time to move it themselves** is “loathsome” and quite possibly illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/33 "2021-05-28T18:23:59Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > I live in a NYC apartment. Yes, throwing away another adult’s property **without asking them or giving them time to move it themselves** is “loathsome” and quite possibly illegal. OK. And what do you think of just leaving stuff in someone else’s apartment and expecting them to store it and care for it? As to the legalities, maybe. I’m not sure of what the legal obligation is to store someone else’s property. I know storage facilities don’t have to do it, if the property owner stops paying. I’m not sure if a kinship relationship changes that. Are you? ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/34 "2021-05-28T18:26:34Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > > [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > > > I live in a NYC apartment. Yes, throwing away another adult’s property **without asking them or giving them time to move it themselves** is “loathsome” and quite possibly illegal. > > OK… And what do you think of just leaving stuff in someone else’s apartment and expecting them to store it and care for it? That wasn’t what the OP was talking about. If you don’t want to store it, you tell them they have X amount of time to take it before you toss it. Again, throwing away another person’s property **without giving them notice** is a loathsome asshole move. It’s really not a difficult concept. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/35 "2021-05-28T18:27:11Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Throwing away other people’s possessions without even giving them notice? How about storing stuff in someone else’s (even a relative’s) home without an arrangement to do so? I see no indication in the OP that there was any kind of agreement about storage. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/36 "2021-05-28T18:28:09Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Again, throwing away another person’s property **without giving them notice** is a loathsome asshole move You might be right. Depending on circumstances, of course. I don’t see in the OP any indication of an indefinite arrangement for storage. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/37 "2021-05-28T18:28:44Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > > [@Ulfreida](#): > > > > Throwing away other people’s possessions without even giving them notice? > > How about storing stuff in someone else’s (even a relative’s) home without an arrangement to do so? I see no indication in the OP that there was any kind of agreement about storage. Then you tell them to take it or you’ll throw it out. Why is it so hard for you to communicate with people? “Hey, you have some stuff here. I never said you could store it so if you don’t get it by X, it’s going in the trash.” ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/38 "2021-05-28T18:31:07Z")
My parents eventually told me no more free storage of my childhood stuff in their home. Fair enough. I told them when I could come pick it up and I did so, and told them they could whatever they wanted with the rest (as it happened, some went to my nieces/nephews). Which is the way it SHOULD work. Tossing stuff that belongs to other people is, at best, rude and inconsiderate. It can be worse than that. (Unless, of course, you have explicit permission) It’s true what is one person’s trash is another person’s treasure - even more true in this day and age of eBay and its cousins. I’ve actually made a nice amount from selling the stuff of deceased relatives that wound up in my place - hey, they don’t need it anymore, I don’t want it, but someone else does. Win/win. But if any of those people were still alive I’d ask/notify them about the end of storage in my place. I am a little pissed that two of the nephews ended up with my Narnia collection and a couple other books I left at my parents’ house, mainly because their mother is the sister who denies my existence so I knew I would NEVER get any of them back, more than the fact my nephews got to enjoy them as much as I did. I kind of get why everyone assumed some of the kids books I had left behind I didn’t want anymore. I think my parents getting rid of the piano without telling me hurt more. Sure, it was never exclusively my piano, and it was deteriorating fast, but I would have liked to have been told. I let them know how hurt I was by the above two situations (and my mom DID try to get my books back but my sister flat out refused once she knew mom wanted them back for me and not for my other sister’s kids) and they at least started giving me a heads up on major disappearances or asking before giving my stuff away. Even if, to them, it seemed “obvious” I didn’t want it or had abandoned it. Then I started getting phone calls of “is this yours? I thought it might be your sister’s but I wanted to be sure” but it was better than the prior situation and occasionally we got a good laugh out of it. > [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > OK. And what do you think of just leaving stuff in someone else’s apartment and expecting them to store it and care for it? It think it’s a form of free-loading, but I’d contact the person first to establish a deadline to either retrieve it or it’s going out my door under my terms. Or they can pay me monthly to keep the stuff, sort of as a compensation for the space I’m renting I can’t use because their stuff is in it. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/39 "2021-05-28T18:31:08Z")
I communicate with people just fine. Were I to seek to store property in someone else’s home, I would _communicate_ with that person, and come to an understanding about cubic feet, duration, etc. What seems to be the root of the issue(s) here is the failure of people storing property in relatives’ homes to _communicate_ with those relatives about what was expected in terms of long-term storage. If someone, even one of my children, abandoned stuff in my home, yes, ultimately, it would have to go. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091/40 "2021-05-28T18:31:36Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > It think it’s a form of free-loading Amen. And there we have it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-grownups-like-to-throw-away-their-kids-things/943091.md?page=3)