Who Wants the Stuff?

Good Monday morning, everyone. I do hope you had a great weekend and did something fun. I spent Saturday at the Winnsboro Center for the Arts; first volunteering to keep the doors open so visitors could see the one-woman exhibition of the work of Barb Richert, then at a concert by John Gorka. In addition to his wonderful music, I loved his shtick. He has wonderful comedic timing, and there was much laughter with the applause.

Sunday was a quiet, relaxing day, catching up on some business in the morning, then watching episodes of The Blacklist for a while.

One of my daughters and her husband do not have a lot of “stuff” in their home. They don’t seem as attached to things as I am, and how my mother was. We loved to look at trinkets and jewelry and pictures and other things, recalling where we got them and what they meant to us. Her apartment was cluttered with those kinds of things, as well as things she had made, and we never seemed to mind the clutter.

Not so for some of the younger generation.

I thought perhaps my daughter and her husband were unique, or just didn’t like to dust, but then I read this article, Sorry, Nobody Wants Your Parent’s Stuff”  at Next Avenue, written by Richard Eisenberg. He quotes a number of people who have had dismal luck trying to sell items from their parents’ estates, making the point that hanging on to things of sentimental value may be a thing of the past.

So, I look around my house at things that I brought from Michigan when my mother died a few years ago and realize that my kids may not want them.

What do I do with them?

Perhaps you are in a similar situation, with parents who have collected a lot of things that you or your kids may not want. If so, you might want to click over to read the whole article by Eisenberg. He gives a number of concrete suggestions of what do do, starting with, start planning now.

Some of the items your parents have might have some value, so if there is time to start researching now, before parents die, the items could be sold to collectors.

Furniture may be the hardest items to sell, as not many people are interested in antiques. I can remember that was all the rage when I was a young wife and mother, but that was a long time ago. Homes are not decorated with antiques like they used to be, and not that many grand-kids care about sleeping in grandma’s bed.

Knowing that many of the things I treasure, and my mother did, may not be passed on to future generations, makes me a little sad. While I understand that the kids do not have the attachment to “things” that I do, I wonder what they will pause to look at in some future time to remember a special moment from this time? Or will it even matter?

Heavy thoughts for this Monday morning, so I will leave you with a joke.

A Texas State trooper pulled over an old dusty pickup driven by a cowhand from a nearby ranch as he headed east on I-10. The trooper asked, “Got any ID?”

The cowboy replied, “Bout’ whut?”

~ ~ ~ ~

Are you a collector of things? Do you have family heirlooms that you treasure? Do you know who will get them next?

Did it take you a second or two to get the joke? I had to translate it all to Texan Talk before I got it.