Posted on 04/14/2016 12:27:24 PM PDT by metmom
Parents of grown children, please sit down. I have some harsh news for you. Your kids don't want your stuff. Don't take it personally. It's not that they don't love you. They don't love your furniture.
The china hutch, the collectible figurines, your antique map or thimble collection, the sideboard, all those family treasures may hold many precious moments for you, but for your kids, not so much.
Ouch. Yes, I know you think you're being generous. Yes, I know you paid good money for these things. Yes, I know kids can seem unappreciative. Yes, I know it was part of your family's history. And, yes, I know it still contains some useful life. I also know that deep down, you believe your kids will change their minds.
That is pure fantasy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
“And most likely worth s goodly sum of money to collectors and movie prop companies.”
Pretty much. Don Draper (Mad Men) could easily walk in any moment and set his drink on the Lucite table.
Even a chrome ball telephone and shiny patterned wallpaper in the half bathroom.
I describe it as “what a designer thought 2016 would look like in 1968.”
The vast majority of my m-i-l’s photos are NOT labeled so who the people are is anyone’s guess.
They’re going.
That is hysterical, isn’t it?
I find this refreshing. I don’t like being surrounded by clutter and antiques do nothing for me. When I last moved, I gave most of my furniture to charity and digitalized all my media. Our new home is very efficient and modern.
Same with ours, nameless.
Mine want my guns, my tools, and anything they could sell on ebay.
My daughters want my guns.
They’ve even stated that they’re not waiting for me to die off.
They’re 14 and 16.
In the early 90s, my mother had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and thought she was going to die. When she recovered, she said, "I realized I didn't want to die with a house full of silver plate," so she sent me all her silver plate: punch bowl and cups (engraved with the names of pilots from whichever squadron it was), chafing dish (engraved from the officers' wives of some other squadron), serving trays (each from a squadron), and a set of flatware. I spent my childhood polishing this stuff. We gave the punch bowl, chafing dish, and trays to our church before we moved from Oklahoma. I still have the flatware. (Mom still has her sterling set.)
One of her church friends in Florida is moving to "the home" and wanted to give me a dining table and 12 chairs, but I don't have a room in my house big enough for it.
The wife is in Wills and Estates. For the most part, the article is true. The flotsam and jetsam usually gets auctioned and proceeds dispersed.
But sometimes the estates liquid assets end up financing some of the most asinine sibling battles over items like “mom’s good knife”.
Amen...when I croak; anything I have left goes to cats.
LOL!!!
I think it’s overstated, too. And sometimes ‘kids’ in their busy 20s or 30s don’t know what they might appreciate later.
I have a lot of wonderful old things from my folks; but there are things I passed on back then that I would like to have now.
-JT
My mother died two years ago but my 85-y.o. father is still living in his old house, which was an overflowing dump. Every time we visit there, my older brother and I go through some stuff and take it away to be dumped. I just finished removing the last of the old magazines from the 70’s and 80’s from the upstairs porch.
One of the poignant aspects of the ‘Lovejoy’ mysteries was the contrast between what was considered a valuable antique and what was merely memorabilia in the antiques trade. Lovejoy was a divvy don’tchaknow. Ian McShane was the perfect actor for the role. Love Phyllis Logan in it, also. Had a crush on that gal back then! IMS the entire six years of the series is available on Youtube now. I have the DVD collection as a ‘treasure’ and I re-watch episodes periodically, with a pot of tea and a few biscuits, oatmeal raisin preferred.
Nobody has brought this up yet, but things have changed in the last 60 years due to the size of families more than anything else.
To put this in perspective, my grandparents had 5 children, 17 grandchildren, and 4 adult great-grandchildren when they passed away. That is a lot of households that wanted things of theirs as simply keepsakes. When you have things being divided up among 20 to 30 households, then what you have can easily be absorbed by others.
Today, a typical couple going into their 70’s would have maybe two or three children, maybe four or five grandchildren, and maybe a single great-grandchild who is college aged.
After 50 years of accumulating things, there is between five and seven households to split it among.
Of course a lot more will be tossed or sold, there are a lot of things to absorb into many fewer households!
Believe me, I'm well aware of how bad they are. I saw enough of those from my days of working for the FDIC.
maybe this is a North American thing.
Even now in the UK, “he had to buy his own furniture” is still a sneering upper class putdown of a financially successful arriviste.
http://www.economist.com/node/7289005
my dad has slowly been giving me some stuff... generator, lawnmower, stuff here, stuff there... and boom-sticks.
I like the boom-sticks (and the rocks they throw)
“I have seen parents deny their loving and responsible children their inheritance.”
Are you sure they are loving and responsible? That story doesn’t make sense.
My folks have fine old furniture from the old country (Italy) that has held up well and weights slightly less than a grand piano (plus they have a piano). No way could I keep any of it but I have enough siblings to insure that it all gets a good home.
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