To be so angry sorting out my parents stuff

@ProcrastinatorsAnonymous You're completely correct. Although in my case it's always DM who brings it up. As if saying she's thought of it and then done nothing is supposed to make things better?
And "too busy" makes me cry. She has quite literally never worked FT since she had me. She has no idea. I don't want to make it seem like a Competiton, it isn't, but I need to guilt tripping at every turn to go away.

@MaggieFS @Ginghamsheep
I've decided to stop asking them. I brought it up gently a few times and then much more explicitly three or four times over the past couple of years. They agree with the principle and say they'll do it, but nothing happens - and they clearly feel I am nagging them. I've realised I can keep bringing it up and upsetting myself and them, or just leave it - the result will be the same either way. Perhaps they don't like being forced to confront their mortality, and I have sympathy for that. But it does make me seethe when they say they've been "too busy" and then talk about a dozen 6-part drama series they've been watching and express surprise I haven't had time to sit down and watch them...

I'm sorry to hear this. I too am an only child and worry about how I will sort out my parents house. My mother is a hoarder. She could be doing a lot now to sort things out, but she isn't. She doesn't like the 'guilt' of throwing things out, so she will leave it all to me. I am not sure how I will cope with it all on top of the bereavement.

Hi OP, your parents are both gone? I just went through this. War babies, same house for almost 60 years, nothing thrown away. I hired a company to clear the attic, the garage, and some crap from the garden, and it was the best 550 pounds I've ever spent. A whole crew came and did it in a day. It would have taken me two weeks.

This really resonates with me. I get a lot of guilt from DM about how privileged I am (and relatively I am, I know I am!) but I also think there's been a bit of a cross over. Her childhood was tough but as an adult, they could live off just DF's salary, have a good life, and retire early.

For a lower quality of adult life DH and I both have to work FT and it breaks my heart that DC don't have what I had growing up, and are always in wraparound care to boot.

I'm run ragged, exhausted, and mentally stressed. But it's ok for DM to expect me to deal with all the stuff she can't be bothered to sort out. And I do mean can't be bothered. She mumbles about it occasionally, but can't face it. So she's consciously not doing anything about it.

When the time comes, we're screwed. What do I do? Use precious holiday to even get the basic admin done? I will have to go through things because I do want some of DF's things (which she won't give me now).

Feel angry
Feel sad
Congratulate yourself for being a better parent
Go out, smash some plates and treat yourself to something frivolous.

Only child in my 40s here with mid-70s lifelong-disorganised, borderline-hoarder parents at the other end of the country who see me running myself into the ground with work and kids and repeat endlessly that "they wish they could do something to help" - yet refuse my repeat requests to organise their paperwork and scale down their attic, basement, garage and wardrobes which are all crammed with a lifetime of "keeping just in case".

They have been so careful with money all their lives and would be horrified by the idea of me skipping things rather than keeping or selling them, but when the time comes, all of my available time and energy will have to go on unpicking their chaos - meaning I'll have no choice but to use a house clearance firm.

It feels unsayable because they both had fairly unpleasant childhoods and did all they could to make mine nicer - they consider their lot in life to have been very difficult. But actually, when you break it down - mum never had to work full time, dad could access a semi-professional job without a degree (although could've got grants to study if he'd chosen to), they bought a house in their 20s and saw it climb in value, could afford two cars, final salary pension, their idea of a long day at the office was my Dad coming home at 8, they had time for hobbies, sat down to watch hours of TV every evening without fail, no health issues for either of them until the last few years. They would argue otherwise, but I would say they've had pretty easy adult lives!

I wish they would think about how little time I have, how exhausted I am, and the fact I'm an only child - and just do what they can to make the next stage a little easier. I worry that when I want time to grieve, I'll actually be on hold to a series of call centres trying to unpick utilities / insurance policies etc, feeling increasingly angry that they couldn't find a bit of time to organise things and write a few practical things down.

You have completely and utterly missed the point haven't you.

It was their money to spend how they wished.

@@Juliagreeneyes
My older brother took a couple RSAs but the younger brother had left the year he was 15 (the norm then, and actually age 14 as I said), and did not do anything at all. I believe my elder DB left at 15 as well, but he would have been 15, but I cannot remember exactly, but know the younger one did.
No one took CSEs.
I did not know anyone who went to university.
As I said, I am retired, left school in 1970.
Technically the secondary moderns were abolished, but this was after my DBs had left. The schools still exist and are now comprehensives. At that time they did NOT have education post 16.
Obviously, they have expanded since then and now offer a full comprehensive education.
However, I do not really like this pitting of one generation against another. Some things were harder back then, some things easier.
However, my point was really that we were brought up not to waste anything, and these are hard habits to break.

@Juliagreeneyes there are not going to be many people on MN as old as you and me. Kudos for keeping up with the discussion.

When I applied for university places in 1973, Oxford and Cambridge top colleges still didn't consider female applicants unless for female colleges. So I applied for the most selective universities were open to m&f entrants.

As I wrote, this was in a hospital at the start of Covid paranoia & DD was a first year nurse obeying instructions on practically her first day on placement 🙄

Yes the woman loved her expensive handbag but it just felt sad and poignant how worthless our beloved possessions really are.

@milveycrohn please read my posts above debunking the university/Blair myth. It’s very tiresome to have it repeated on the same thread I’ve taken time to explain why that’s completely wrong.

Secondary modern schools, the last of which are abolished in the early 1970s, generally offered the CSE, which was merged with the O-level to make the GCSE, a combined qualification created from both. But before 1951 the qualification was the School Cert.

My DM died last summer, at 89, quietly. The family have sorted her posessons out and have thrown out to charity shops everything none of the living wanted. So I took a half dozen sweaters, nice cashmere ones, because we're the same size and colouring, and a pair of boots that were a late buy. I am wearing that pair of boots every other day.

@squirrelinajar it would be down to the hospital policy, which I expect is in place to prevent staff personally benefitting from deceased patients’ belongings (which would obviously be totally wrong) and to stop accusations of this happening from family or friends who eventually appear.

I’m sorry @DazedorBemused this is difficult stuff. I hope it’s over swiftly for you.

My parents’ house is stuffed full of mahogany veneer furniture, china figurines and “special edition” trinkets. However, I think they might have just started to see the light, partly because of the realisation that they won’t be able to shift furniture about and climb ladders in a few more years, and want some control over their possessions. It does make me feel annoyed about the wasted money, as they are not cash rich and could do with it now for essentials like dental work and car repairs. But I accept that they thought these things were genuine investments. I also think they are having to admit to themselves that buying all that stuff was an mistake, which can’t be easy.
My family has the favouritism thing for boys thing to boot, but I feel detached from it now. It’s like ancient history, and I’m only in my thirties!

Threads on this topic make me feel weird about life. We are only alive for a moment it seems, then everything goes in the bin!

I understand your frustration. Do be careful what you throw out...for example some Lego is worth 100s 😊
It may be a gold mine - check on eBay solds

I was thinking of the posts about parents saying they'd been poor and then they died and there was lots of stuff. You can have known real poverty but be comfortably off at another stage in life.

No my parents were never well off. I was poor as a child, I was poor as a teenage mother, I was poor as a single mother but if anyone looks at what I have now and decides I was never poor they would be wrong.

OP if you are still there, I get it, absolutely and totally get it.

I don't have any advice but you are not alone.

Why not give it to charity?

And also, maybe this woman did not have friends or family but liked a decent handbag?

@Juliagreeneyes
Only arounbd 10 percent of students went to univeristy, until there was a massive expansion by Tony Blair.
It was also much easier to sack people / make redundant than it is now.
I am retired, so a late baby boomer. My brother left school at 14 (OK, his birthday is in August, so in his 15th year)
Normal secondary modern schools did not even take main stream exams such as 'O' levels, the precursor to the GCSE exam.

I was brought up with the idea of not wasting anything, and distinctly remember untying the string from parcels to be used again. (But who uses string these days?)

I did not mind going through my parents stuff (though this happened when my widowed mother went into a home, as the house was sold to pay for her care).
A lot of things had memories, but in my case, the memories were mainly positive. We kept some items (China), distributed others, and then disposed of others with a clearance company. I presume they would probably know which itmes were valuable (antique), which could be sold on, and which were rubbish.

However, I admit we are ourselves now trying to declutter, but have taken the precaution of offering stuff/artefacts to our DC before disposing of them.

Should've just hired a clearance company to do it.
I did for most of my father's, but did quite a lot of trips to a charity shop.
My sister thought I was going to list and handle selling all of it on eBay FFS, or traipse round auction houses - but of course only came to the flat once to "help".

After a morning of "sell this, sell that..." I suggested she make a list of what she was going to organise the sale of, but she'd have to get a move on because I wanted to get the flat on the market.

She was exactly the same with my mum's stuff, although I was less involved, her dad's, and then her step mum's (and from the sound of it her brother got equally hacked off. And with every subsequent death, her house gets more and more full of stuff that she is going to arrange to sell🙄

I'm also in my 70s and hate stuff. I love my photos of kids and GC, I spend little on clothes and gave my books away when I got my kindle. I wish my husband was the same.

But that’s entirely different, you were brought up in poverty because I presume your parents were poor. They weren’t hiding secret bags of cash and buying loads of pointless stuff, presumably?

What an amazing woman your mum was! You must be so proud.

Some books and games can be worth giving to a charity shop. You can barcode scan the ISBNs of books into amazon or similar if you want to go through quickly and see whats worth passing on/what needs to go into a skip (must be an app for this somewhere).

I often buy vintage games at our local charity shops (I'm a tutor so I use them in my job).

A local second hand book shop will also usually come to the house and value/collect and give you something if there are any sellable titles they want.

China = skip

Otherwise house clearance as suggested by others.

But check pockets to make sure there isn't a cool 16k knocking about in there.

It's a sad and thankless task OP.

Probably easier to do it for someone else's family rather than one's own, as no bitter or happy memories - it's just stuff.

Sorry to hear of the favouritism, that does rankle. Hope that once you're through and out the other end of house sorting you will find some peace. You deserve it.