I see you conveniently did not quote where she wrote:
Which is exactly what you have been saying you don’t do.
Look. Here we are. Tell you what, I’ll let the reprehensible aspersions cast on my parenting go if a bunch of posters here will concede that they really don’t get, through no fault of their own, the incredible value of just plain cubic feet in New York City, and how that might color one’s perception of storing stuff for relatives.
Not you, Eyebrows_0f_Doom. I get that you’re a New Yorker, and fully understand that. I don’t know if you’re a parent or not (none of my business, of course), and you’re just a more evolved being than I am, and more generous with the cubic feet available to you.
And, as I asked you before, I’m not 100% sure you’re right about the legalities of the situation.
Every one of these incidents happened in New York City. And I believe the OP clearly stated that I did NOT just leave my stuff behind, but rather had specified that I would be in Europe for the next few months and had gotten permission to leave it in her basement. In the first instance, it was in MY HOUSE (that my family shared with my aunt’s family) and in the third instance, the magazines were inside my suitcase that I was going to be leaving with in a few days.
That wasn’t in your OP.
(emphasis mine)
It didn’t specify that.
If a friend or another relative is a freeloader, that’s one thing. If your kid is a freeloader, frankly that is another category. Even adult children are your children forever. It doesn’t mean you accept any amount of abuse from them, it means it’s a different category. There are a thousand things I would do for my daughter that I would probably not even consider for another person (other than my spouse). It’s just how it is.
They may not say anything, but don’t kid yourself, they notice.
It wasn’t relevant. You introduced the whole idea of the preciousness of NYC storage space–I’m adding it to demonstrate that maybe you dont know what you’re talking about.
And what, you think I broke into my uncle’s basement in the dark of night and took off for Europe without telling anyone that I’d left a few boxes in his basement?
I didn’t think anything, since you didn’t describe the terms (if any) of your storage arrangement.
And rather than ask for clarity, you decided to make your own assumptions (about where I lived, and what i said) and go off on a rant. I’m beginning to think you have some buried issues here about throwing out your kids’ stuff that are slowly bubbling to the surface of your consciousness.
Maybe they do, but I’m not sure. If they never say anything, how would we know?
They do notice some things, which is why we generally have a several-month window where we remove the thing but don’t actually get rid of it, and if they ask about it we can “find” it for them. The vast majority they never ask after.
Do you have a better suggestion for what we should do? This is a sincere question. I don’t like throwing away their stuff, but if we ask them to choose things to get rid of they won’t. They’ll just come up with really good reasons why the broken toy they never play with is super important, or that they need all these pictures they cut out of magazines and leave strewn all over the floor, or whatever.
First of all, please, do me a favor. Stop insulting my relationship with my children, about which you know nothing. It’s really uncalled for, and out of line.
Second, my first post in this thread was a generalized statement about adult children who store stuff in their parents’ homes, and expect it to be stored forever.
It was not, as you’ll see if you go back and check, directed at you in particular. It was not even a reply to your post.
And yet you chose to respond directly to it with “Sure glad I never had you for a parent, I will tell you that.”
Which is beyond insulting. Way outside the scope of accepted discourse in IMHO. And utterly uncalled for.
And it went downhill from there. Accept your responsibility for the way things went, and I’ll accept mine. Good enough?
No, I don’t have a better suggestion. My mother used to do it to me all the time, usually clothes. I almost never said anything because I just thought that was the way things were done because I never knew anything other. But I always noticed.
eta: and when my nudie mags would go missing, I thought it wiser to remain silent!
He actually did, in post 4
I’m a little bit sensitive about this because I’ve had a lot of my stuff “disappeared” without forewarning.
When my parents fell on hard times a lot of our stuff ended up in my grandma’s garage. It all got sold via yard sale a couple years later by a relative who had also fallen on hard times and needed the money. Basically all of my possessions from 2nd grade and earlier were gone (I was 10 when this happened).
My uncle gave me a nice jacket for Christmas which I wore for several years until I outgrew it. My mom gave it away without asking me. It had a lot of sentimental value. I was 15 when this happened and the jacket was in my closet.
When I went to college (for the first time) I left my books at home because there was no room in my dorm room. My parents gave them all away without warning. When I came home for Christmas my freshman year I saw an empty bookshelf in my bedroom. I was pretty upset.
My SO received a box of his stuff when he visited his family home in the 80’s. In the box was his beloved pair of c. 1976 waterproof Timberland hiking boots. He was thrilled to see them again and continued to wear them on and off over the next few years.
After a time the boots went to the back of his closet. Until I found them 20 years later and was a bit grossed out by them I admit. Still he insisted they were fine, look he said the vibram soles have been replaced, nothing is worn through they still have the original laces even!
Still I argued these must go! No? No.
Forgotten about for another decade until this pandemic year when we were majorly decluttering, he saw the boxes and piles of stuff I had ready for the thrift store and he proceeded to thin out his business clothes and dress shoes. I hinted about the Timberlands but he looked hurt so I dropped it. But the next day I found him brushing and cleaning his old boots until they were nearly soft and supple again. He then claimed he’d start wearing them again 
Reverently he explained how special they were, how they carried him across the UI campus, the Porkies, the Rockies through rain, sleet and snow. He nearly hugged them to his chest.
FFS! Jeez o Pete is all I could say.
I left him with an empty box, told him to write a goodbye note put them in a box and be done with that chapter once and for all!
He did! After he wore them again once and finally decided that someone less fortunate could probably make use of his beloved boots. I sure hope so.
Post 4 was after my response, and his response to me, in which he/she/they (I don’t know) got insulting.
And before your post where you wrote
But keep on making stuff up. Your defensiveness about your treatment of your kids is getting very interesting, by which I mean it really is supplying me with support for “psychological issues” being behind much of the impetus for adults to mistreat kids by throwing out their possessions without permission. My aunts and mother-in-law struck me as loopily defensive at the time, you’re striking me the same way now.
Yours was post 2 and his was post 4. You really didn’t read two posts down, even as you kept participating in the thread?
I’m not going to get into it as this isn’t the right forum, but I’m not sure that’s the winning argument here.
throwing out someone else’s stuff is the worst form of theft. They’ve been deprived of their property and no one else even gets to enjoy having it.
My parents asked me before tossing any of my stuff. I mean it’s natural that your childhood stuff ends up at your parents house. You go off to college, get a job, start living on your own, etc. Still think it’s kind of shitty to just toss it without warning.
OTOH, my wife comes from a family of hoarders and she is heading down that same path. There are high school text books and magazines from the 2000s still taking up space in her parents house. And our apartment is slowly filling up with kid’s toys. Particularly Lego. I mean I like Lego too (so long as I have a 6 and a 4 year old with me), but I kind of don’t want half our apartment filled by a giant Lego cityscape (which now extends into various suburbs, exurbs and rural areas!). But I guess that’s a bit different as the kids are still playing with it.