To be so angry sorting out my parents stuff

I can relate to this . After my kids grew up and left home for the first time ever I had disposable income to spend on myself and omg I did . I went crazy . I really try now to buy what I need and have decluttered . I've still got some more left to do .

My husband is a hoarder too . He's a food hoarder . We don't waste food thought it gets used up before its expiry date . He says it makes him feel secure to have a full freezer and cupboard.

He also collects tools .

I do believe if you have a bigger house you will fill it with junk . We have twice the space that we had with our first house and have twice the amount of junk .

We currently have 4 bookshelves on the go and 8 drawers filled with crap . I am determined to ruthlessly dispose of this before the year is out .

OP - lots of posts excusing your parents but they might just have been selfish. Mine are/were. They didn't support me from the age of 18 either (including through university) because they just didn't want to. Not because they couldn't afford to or were going through financial issues - they just wanted to spend that money on themselves/my siblings.

Why are there always posts like this?

Just because you made something work for you doesn't mean everyone should do the exact same. I was also at uni in the early 90s, also had to support myself. I had two jobs at one point. Depends where you live and how expensive it was, doesn't it?

It’s very hard to feel your parents are apparently ignoring you in times of need. You have to try and remember that they were living in a different cycle, they too had hard times when they were younger but were past them and into a more prosperous phase of their life. They wanted to enjoy what they had worked and waited for.

Hopefully you will have the same good fortune, OP. I really hope so.

I’m so sorry for your loss, whether it’s your parents or happier memories of them.

I think that's a perfectly valid way to feel. Sorry you're dealing with that.

When my friend was clearing out her mums things after her death, she found messages between her sister and her mum, where her mum had been complaining about her & her daughters and it broke her. Being dead doesn't mean nothing that person ever did isn't allowed to hurt.

OP probably doesn't have the time and energy to do that

You do realise house clearance companies charge a fortune You aren't doing your kids any favours by suggesting this. Indeed quite the opposite.

Some of that stuff will be worth a fortune.
Follow Dan Hatfield.
Look on This Mornings website.
All those old games n toys.
Not to mention the things your parents collected.

Is your brother one of those who'd suddenly start to give a shit if he thought you were chucking away things of any value?

If so, I'd tell him you're not up for this so either he can or it all goes in a skip.

My parents brought loads of stuff thousands of CDs all worthless now and lots of dining ware etc for having different people over. Even 4 years ago my mother was banging on about her evoke 2 radio being worth a fortune - no it really isn’t. They think their possession are worth millions where as they can’t give it away.

I really empathise OP, clearing is rage inducing for me at any time and with the layers of family emotion woven in, sounds very hard.

I think what’s worth bearing in mind and we aren’t really far enough on from yet to have perspective from an historical point of view is the huge explosion in spending power, commercial items being made so much more mass-produced and affordable, convenience and celebration of ‘mass’ shopping and - key - women’s control over earning their own money and being able to essentially spank it without answering to anyone that opened up gradually, slowly in 50s/60s/70s then with mad traction in 80s/90s. I don’t remember any critical thinking around ‘but does anyone NEED any of this stuff?’ Until the noughties.

Society has changed so much in terms of stuff- I always think our instinct to collect hasn’t caught up with the availability of things. Agatha Christie writes in her autobiography (nice middle class upbringing) that she had no stuff - one evening dress and pair of evening shoes in an era where changing for evening was still more common, no car, taking the bust everywhere, but full time daily domestic help! Right now I would trade all my possessions for any domestic help I think.

I didn't mean any tat, there may be good porcelain, or if she comes across some of the lego or handheld games. These can be worth something.

I admit though, I did miss the original point of the post.

There was an 8 year age gap between me and my DB. Mum married his father when I was 3 and he raised me as his own. He was better off when DB was born, he ended up going to private school, uni, very good education. He had everything he wanted, but because they could now afford it. He has had MH issues since late teens so he kind of got what he wanted to compensate.

He lives in a very nice house he bought, has a very, very good job, has lived all over the world and he would be my phone a friend on who wants to be a millionaire because he knows everything - literally everything, super intelligent.

I live in a rented, earning just over min wage, sometimes I get just that little 'pang' of if only I had had his upbringing. If only we had the same parents. Even though we did.

I think there's a difference between getting rid of a lifetime's worth of accumulated junk you've forgotten about and having neatly organised spaces of things you use and love. It's much easier to pack away clothes hanging in a wardrobe or folded in a drawer than going through a loft of random disorganised boxes of junk.

Didn’t most people work while at uni in the 90s? I know I did, and all bar one friend did. I guess my parents could have kept subsidising me, but they (and I) felt better to be self sufficient. Maybe the difference is I know that if I had REALLY struggled - couldn’t feed myself or had nowhere to live - they would have been my safety net.

Im not sure grief is ever entirely rational though, and brings up emotions that have been buried deep. I hope you’re OK OP.

I can relate. I'm around same age, with parents around the same age. They used to talk about rationing etc.
They've sat for nearly 25 years on huge final salary pensions. Multiple cruises and foreign holidays each year. They inherited hundred of thousands and shared not a penny. bought themselves some buy-to-lets and a foreign pad in the sun.
They sat and watched as DP and I struggled. We were too poor to afford meat and not uncommonly walked 3+ miles because we couldn't afford to take the bus. We delayed having kids because we couldn't afford to, then ended up needing fertility treatment mainly due to age. We've been chronically financially insecure, both in terms of job security and pension provision.
They are/were oblivious and gave us no help whatsoever, despite them receiving a 30% deposit from my GM to buy the house I grew up in.
Now they are so obsessed with the taxman getting his hands on their loot that they are setting up trusts for the grandchildren and squirreling money in there despite the fact that when their own parents died they pocketed the lot and ensured that the grandchildren (i.e. myself and siblings) didn't get a penny.
Entitled fuckers.

Yes it can be very emotional, sad, frustrating, heartbreaking and often rage inducing to clear out someone's home for them. I know this from my own experience, so am bit by bit embracing the "Swedish death cleaning" method. It won't be perfect, it's ongoing, and I'll still have some "stuff" but it won't be anything like my late mother's house either! I look on it as a courtesy to those who might have to do that job for me someday.

https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/what-swedish-death-cleaning-should-you-be-doing-it-ncna816511

My mum (born 1931) wouldn't change anything in the house. It was 'too expensive' to put a new carpet down, when she died she still had the carpet in the living room that my brother and I grew up with. Furniture was renewed when it died not because it got scruffy/smelly. I think my parents had the same mattress from the day they married until the day my mum died.

Yet she left enough money for both my brother and I, who inherited jointly, to buy our houses outright. We used to tell her to buy new stuff, but she just wouldn't. I think the frugal lifestyle that was forced onto her by having almost no money when we were both growing up (my dad worked but didn't earn a great deal) became a habit. I wish she'd splurged the cash on herself a bit more.

Incidentally, does Swedish Death Cleansing really advise getting rid of everything and sitting in an empty house???

@VodkaCola of course not! It just means sorting and divesting oneself of the tat we all accumulate. All those boxed clothes, unloved ornaments, items held on to 'just in case'- in short all the stuff that pp are feeling oppressed by when clearing parents' houses. It's supposed to be liberating, and helpful in advance so one's children have a lighter task when we go.

They didn't help OP out when she was working two part-time jobs during term-time while at University and full time in the holidays and they weren't poor then.

@DazedorBemused can't your brother help with the clearing and sorting out of your parents' stuff?

By the way, where is your brother while all of this house clearing is going on?

That’s such an onerous process though. And most people don’t want to buy junk.
I take good quality stuff to charity shops, and anything the charity shops wouldn’t want goes to the tip.

I understand you, OP. My parents also had golden children to whom they gave a lot, in childhood and adulthood, and nothing to the other children. Some of it is the old-fashioned way of thinking, maybe, in that their golden children were also boys. Don't feel guilty about the way you feel. Even though I was my parent's carer, I did it out of duty. That sort of uneven distribution is a shitty thing to do. And withholding money, I sort of get too and it has been covered by people above. But it is also shitty. Once you have finished the clearing out, I hope that you can get rid of your anger. My anger has now turned to a bit of scorn and quite a lot of indifference. Let every trip to the dump be a release of a bit more of your anger, too. My best wishes.

Please try and sell a lot of this stuff, don't take it all to the tip

Dear @DazedorBemused ... allow yourself to feel all of these feelings... be kind to yourself. Think about not doing any of this... find someone else to do it... your brother maybe... or of you can't afford to pay someone, think about how much it would cost you in time and see if you can use that time to make money to pay someone else.. or bring a friend who will play loud music, feed you doughnuts and fling everything in skip... and will not let you read receipts or analyse everything.

If you think there is something valuable to find... focus only on that... the rest is not your responsibility. Give yourself permission to just let it all go... physically and emotionally... come back to your own values, actions and things that make you happy. Love yourself... that's all there is.