Behold, the boxes of guilt…
These are the boxes of drawings, ticket stubs, participation certificates and sportsmanship trophies that have taken over your garage and basement. They are the boxes that have layers of regret as thick as the layers of dust covering the Lucite tops.
Because, you see, these are the boxes a “good mom” would have turned into loving scrapbooks with pictures of your kid’s idyllic childhood and quippy sayings accompanying each photo mounted on acid-free paper for future generations to bask in and enjoy.
But instead, you have mounds of stuff no one has looked at in years, except for the occasional glimpse accompanied by that twinge of guilt.
Now, you just want to pass the boxes along and get them out of the garage, but how do you do that without overloading your kids with clutter?
Pre-Sort Before Your Kids Get Involved.
One of the biggest mistakes we can make is to dump a thousand photos, stuffed animals, certificates and miscellany on our kids and say, “Here.” As parents, we have some responsibility to guide our kids through the process.
- Not every memory is worth keeping. I’ve kept exactly one picture of me and my first husband. It was when we were in high school on a church youth trip and we were just getting to know each other. I had a huge crush on him and everything at that time was fun and possibilities. I kept that photo because when I see it, it makes me smile. The rest of the photos of just the two of us – gone. And here’s the good news: I don’t miss them at all. This move was not out of anger; those memories are just not happy ones and I moved on a long time ago. I’ve kept a few pictures of us as a family for our kids.
Your kids also don’t need pictures of relatives they met one time when they were three, cousins they don’t know, or family vacations before they were born. You can pre-sort anything you know they don’t care about.
Same goes for picture with people whose names I (and my kids) don’t remember, or pictures that are associated with not great memories.
- Now that you’ve had the chance to evaluate the memories, it’s time to choose the best of the best. Do you really need/want 32 pictures of your daughter’s fourth birthday, or would three pictures be enough? Do you need to keep the third-place trophy of your daughter’s homeschool bowling league, or would a picture of the trophy suffice?
Choose the best of the best, and get rid of the rest. We only need one photo to spark a good memory. Let it be the best photo in the bunch.
Schedule a Time With Your Kids to Sort Through The Rest.
Once you’ve presorted, then it’s time to get your kids in on the process. It’s a lot easier to make group decisions after you’ve culled everything you know nobody wants.
- Decide. Ask your kids if they want input to the evaluation process. Some kids will want to be sure to have their input, and some could not care less. Either answer is fine, but they need to know that if they don’t participate, they don’t get to complain later on.
And be sure to let your kids know that they will not hurt your feelings if they don’t keep everything. Remember, not every memory has earned the right to be preserved.
Here are some things you’ll want to discuss during the sorting process:
a.) Who is keeping these treasures?
b.) How much space do I want to dedicate to storing photos and memorabilia?
c.) What should happen to certain items if the person keeping them no longer wants them? (For example, maybe Mom would keep the artwork Suzy painted in high school if she eventually decides to get rid of it.)
2. Display. If you’ve been a part of the Clutter Free Academy, you know I have three criteria for whether you keep something:
a.) I love it.
b.) I use it.
c.) I would buy it again.
This is great criteria for you and also for guiding your kids when deciding what to keep.
- Digitalize. For pics of my pics without the glare, I use PhotoScan by Google. This way, I have a digital record of what I need.
- Distribute. Make sure your kids have access to whatever photos they want, whether it’s the actual photos or the folder where the digital copies are.
I want memorabilia guilt to be a thing of your past —not part of your kid’s future. Decluttering before you pass those items down, and then helping them decide what to keep and what to toss ensures they’ll have all of the memories and none of the guilt.
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This made me cry! I can’t believe how well you put this into words! THE GUILT!!! And, for me, it’s a heavier burden as our daughter passed away almost 6 years ago. Our son is 22 and we have no idea what he would want of hers in the future. There are so MANY pictures, and things that she touched, ugh, just washing my car for the first time after she passed away was heart wrenching, all the fingerprints, french fry crumbs etc….. just gone. We were forced to move from our home a year ago, and after she passed away we purged many, many things. But there is more to go, in a storage unit, that would be money better spent elsewhere. My husband is so patient and relieves me of all guilt. I just can’t seem to finish. I thank you, so much for your words, and strategy.
Samadi – Thank you for sharing so openly and tenderly. Continue to be gentle with yourself. These are extraordinary circumstances. Keep the things that when you look at them, make you smile and bring back memories of your girl’s personality. I know the money could be better spent, but you are still in the grieving process and that requires time and patience. God bless you as you walk this holy path.
You are so kind, and my hope is in the Lord! I’m so thankful she is with Him. I appreciate your thoughts and will continue to work through it all.
Wow after reading your fommentary, it was my feelings organized and seen in words . Sooo powerful. I just don’t know where to start!
This is really helpful information . It is so hard for me to let things go.
This is good timing for me. My mom passed 21 years ago, when I was 17, so I boxed up all memories she had – pictures, awards, so many things. Add to that all the things I have saved for our 20 year old; I desperately need to sort through bc she holds onto everything and I don’t want anything I do to contribute to this pattern of keeping stuff. Something happened when my mom passed and I get so nostalgic over items I find from my childhood, and I just have to have them in that moment. Slowly I am working through this process – I don’t want life to be about the stuff that consumes our home.
Great ideas. Not only am I always feeling the overwhelm of the memorabilia that never made the album but now my mom passed this year and I am struggling with her stuff from the last 43 years.
This is a good reminder now as my children are little to not go overboard on keeping memories to the point of overwhelming myself or them.
This mama is knee-deep in the preschool and elementary school keepsakes. I need a plan! thank you for posting this!
Ugh–those pictures of my kids with people they don’t remember! I need to get over the fact that just because I like those people doesn’t mean my kids would want their pictures. I also need to stop passing on subtle guilt when they tell me they don’t want things I think they should want. I’ve hated it when that’s been done to me, so what the heck? Learn a lesson, Carrie.
The timing of this is perfect….I have 2 sons at college & a daughter on her way in the fall & desperately need to begin the process of going through their ‘things’ & making decisions on what to keep & what goes! Now I have some guidelines that will help make it easier!
I love tip #3 – so practical! Thank you for many great ideas and ways to broach the conversation!
Thank you for this post! I am hoping that my daughter and I can go through her school papers for the last 6 year (Pre-K-4th grade) and discard several papers by scanning or taking pictures of them.
Plus, I have several boxes of pictures in our Master bedroom of family and friends my daughter probably doesn’t even know and will have no need for the future.
Great info and advice for a potentially sticky problem! I am working hard to teach my 11 and 6 year old how to decide what to keep and what to toss. My daughter is a bit of a hoarder, but I keep gently chipping away at it with her. When we cleaned out her room, I put the three questions on a big piece of paper on the wall for guidance. Discernment is work I keep coming back to. I still have a big box of preschool masterpieces to “curate”, but I feel good about not needing to hold onto every single thing they make. Mercy!
My son is 20 and I am currently going through EVERY SINGLE paper and art from ALL of his years! That part is pretty easy. It’s all the “things”. Really cool toys. Souvenirs from amazing worldwide trips. Collections. Basically everything has a memory attached to it. I want to simplify what he needs to go through because I agree, it’s just too much. His childhood was so special to me that I saved way too much. It’s somewhat in the way of me enjoying his adulthood. But what to do with some of it is the puzzle.
I homeschool my 6 year old, so I am in control of how many projects we do. As a public school (preK) teacher we feel the need to do a ton of projects to take home, yet hear about all the things the parents throw away. I will definitely be more thoughtful about the number and quality of things I send home.
With my daughter, we have a hard time with all of her drawings. We now have a bulletin board to display them and we try to think of who we can give them to.
My kids are little right now and want to hold on to every paper from every event and every coloring time. I let them display one a week on the refrigerator.
My kids are little, so I’m trying to be choosy now on what I keep. My plan is for all of their school stuff to fit in one plastic tote organized by hanging folders for each school year. I can only keep what fits in the folder. So far this plan is working.
This is good to know as I come into the stage where kids are bringing home treasures.
Greats tips. Thank you for the great advice
These are great! Thank you!
Thank you! These are inspiring permissions!
My family makes fun of me because I tend to keep everything. I am getting better at the clutter free process thanks to you, but I have a long way to go!
This is the sort of thing that I put in the “file pile” to make decisions to deal with later. Well guess what? Later doesn’t come until the pile is overwhelming and I have 1+ years of “filing” to go through. ? i need a better system and these are great tips!
As a mom who just cleaned out my mom and dad’s house (my dear sweet dad went on to glory one year ago-my mom 3 years ago)–who weren’t hoarders–but still saved a lot of stuff–make the decisions NOW so that your kids don’t have to! We purged the bulk of the stuff when we sold the house, but waited a year to sort all the papers and photos. My brother and I were ruthless–one box (about the size of two shoe boxes) was saved for “ancestry” purposes–only photos that made us go “aww” were kept.
So I guess I was the child sorting out the parents stuff–but as I have kids of my own and sort out their stuff–realize–THEY DON’T WANT IT!!! saving their stuff doesn’t bring back their childhood—it just clogs our adulthood.
I have been doing okay with my kids things, I have a small filing tote box with file folders for each grade that we only keep the best things in. My oldest one is in 2nd grade, I ask her occasionally “Does mommy need to keep this or can we throw it out?” So that helps to get her invloved right now instead of after I’ve collected years worth of stuff.
What I’m really worried about is what my mother has… She has 4 of us kids and I know she has large Rubbermaid totes for each of us, I just don’t know how many. There’s no way she would pre-sort any of it, or give it to us now to go through. I feel (as I’m writing out this comment) that I’d just be interested in my baby book and school memories book. But we’ll see, this is all also why I’m trying to keep on top of my kids things, so that they won’t one day have to deal with similar pass-downs that I will receive.
The joke around my house is mom can’t throw away the kids artwork (my kids are 8, 5 and 2). Great tips to help me get started with spring cleaning!
Hi Heather,
Congratulations you won a copy of the “Mom Project!” Thank you for participating! I will contact you for your mailing address. Enjoy the Mom Project!
Blessings,
Chere Williams
Kathi Lipp Intern
I can SO relate to this article!! I’ve always joked with my husband that I can’t throw my kids artwork away (they are 8, 5, and 2). Really great tips. Gonna get my spring cleaning on!
Great reminder for me! I only have one box of memories for 3 kids. “Not bad” you may say. But it I ask my kids, they don’t want any of it. I think girls like to hold onto to things and boys don’t. There are exceptions, but not in this house.
I am in the process right now of going through things i have saved of my childrens….they are helping too, we are doing this project together because there is so much stuff!! i have bins in their rooms, in the basement and the garage! i am hoping to read your new book and that will help me! thank you!
Great ideas! I’d love to win a copy of the mom project!!