I was visiting my Mom this weekend, and she was cleaning out her basement. She gave me several boxes of my childhood mementos to take home. Some of these things, like the stamps made out of old linoleum, and the prints on manilla paper are clearly destined for the trash bin. But what do I do with old report cards, letters from camp, and old diaries
Reading over these old notes, report cards and diary entries has been a really strange experience. How much of that young girl still remains? What are the common threads we still share? What constitutes such an embarrassment now, that the information deserves to be simply burned forever? How much of it is fodder for showing my sons how crazy girls are as young teens? How much do I want my husband to know about me as a seventh grader? A third grader? What do you do with all this stuff? What should I keep and what should I toss?
Moreover, as a Mom, what of my kid’s stuff should I keep for thirty years? What should be sacred, and what should be tossed? And what do I expect my kids o do with these obscure artifacts of my childhood?
How do you make these decisions for your childhood stuff? For that of your kids? What do you keep and what do you toss? And how do you make these decisions?
Walking this line between nostalgia and embarrassment has been kind of weird- I hope I get some of it right, and I can’t wait to hear how you make these decisions for yourself and your kids!
Photo graciously provided by Paul Watson, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved
3 responses so far ↓
STL Mom // Aug 29, 2008 at 8:41 am
My parents are packrats, and every time I visit I get handed some odd thing from my childhood. Some are treasures, others not so much. My doll bed was passed down to my daughter. My hideously ugly ceramic soap dish was thrown out.
Sometimes when I try to decide what to keep and what to toss, I use the grandchild test. Is this something that my future grandchildren will want to have? Sure, they may want to have a few items and photos, but certainly not boxes and boxes of my childhood craft projects.
Unfortunately my mother has caught on to the fact that I don’t keep all these things, so she’s started giving them directly to my kids. Now my daughter won’t let me throw out the lousy counted-cross-stitch that got a white ribbon at the county fair in 1979. Thanks, mom!
Whitney Hoffman // Aug 29, 2008 at 9:53 am
I think the Grandchild test is not a bad one, and probably better than the “would I ever survive the embarrassment if this fell into the “wrong hands” test, which works in some ways, too.
Bad teenage poetry, while it transports me back to that angst -filled time, is still bad teenage poetry that should best be forgotten. Now, how to dispose of it, permanently….. And I will be forever glad it’s gone, in case I am silly enough to ever run for public office.
Kelly D // Aug 29, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I’m in the debate as my girls bring home “crafts” from their daycare. Some of these items are truly not their original art work so they quietly make it into the trash can. Then there are the items that show milestones, such as the first time they colored in between the lines.
As they get older the decision as to what to keep and what should go will get harder. I tend to be a minimalist so I hope I don’t throw something out that they will one day hope to pass along to their children.
Sorry - no real good advice from me. Just a comment to say you’re not alone.
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