When your kids left home…

[TomBradysLeftKneecap]

How sentimental were you with their childhood belongings?

We are about to move as all our kids are either in Uni or post graduate and our lovely home is just too big for two of us to rattle around in.

As I’m packing, I’m having a crisis of conscience. Should I really be binning 20 years of childhood art? Do I really need to keep their favourite pillowcase from when they were 8, even though I will always love it from the years of lying on it with them reading their bedtime stories? What about their trophies and their “stuff” from teenage years?
Do people keep them all or take a photo of it and move on?

Would love to hear how other people attack this process plus, if I’m honest, I want a reason to prat around on MN instead of packing right now 😀

My mum made a scrapbook each with her favourite pieces of childhood art then recycled the rest. She also kept enough of the other stuff for a memory box each, along with the stories of why she'd kept things - a bit like your pillowcase example.

(But my mum is dead, it wasn't a cluttering exercise.)

*decluttering, obviously

The sample of things my mum kept are important to me. Not so much for nostalgia but a connection to the relationship with her. I'd keep at least some of it for them for the same reason one day.

I actually think the pillowcase example of yours is beautiful from the relationship and love it shows.

My DD is 25 and moved out to uni 7 years ago. A lot of her stuff was left behind. I am moving soon so everytime she visits I am grabbing a box and asking what she wants to take home or wants me to keep for her.

Like @Bimblybomeyelash she is very unsentimental, and just says get rid of it all. But I just can’t part with the headband she’d made at 15 to go to the Isle of Wight festival, or the panda onesie that is in all her teenage sleepover photos.

I’ve already curated her primary school years, exercise books, medals, certificates, art.

I guess I’m hoping the point when I don’t have room to store it any more, and she is old enough to have a house that’s big enough to take it, meet at some point.

Her dad is a real hoarder of memories. I regularly sort and throw. Even now there’s a paisley grandad T-shirt I bought in Chelsea girl at 16 which I wish I’d kept. I can’t believe she won’t want some memories.

Ive always thought that’s why rich people have so many antiques and valuables. They live in big houses and everything gets stored in their vast attics til it either rots or becomes a valuable antique.

My dh is a hospital doc, left home at 18 and never went back. In fact he emigrated, arrived in UK with nothing but a big student debt, worked his socks off as a locum and lived in house shares for the first 3 years.

I'm not that sentimental but have kept a big box from each kid. (4 kids ). I've got space so it's not a problem. It's things like school reports and a few awards etc. Not much craft stuff.

They still have bedrooms but I call them guest rooms and redecorated them as soon as they went to Uni.

My kids all have their own homes but they love to come home to our house to hang out with us and each other. Two of the kids live fairly close and they must pop and stay over at least a few times a month.

We have fun together. They find it relaxing and we spoil them when they come home. We cook their favourite foods and I make sure their rooms are welcoming. I love it when they come home.

My parents are the same when I visit them. My Mum puts up balloons for me and there are aLways freash flowers in 'my' bedroom and my favourite foods in the fridge. She has a very small box of my childhood things which includes some reports and awards.

I've no idea about our 'apron strings' status though 😅

Crikey! Some of these comments! 😂 We’re not chucking our kids out on the streets, we’re just moving to a slightly smaller house not far away.

Thanks to @tickticksnooze the pillowcase has made the cut!

If you've kept 20 years of their "artwork" then yes, you need to declutter, but ideally I wouldn't move house and get rid of all their childhood memories whilst they are away at University. I mean, if you are moving, then obviously that is what will happen, but if I moved when they were away at University I would be making a really effort to put their 'memory stuff' in the new house so it felt a little bit like their home.
I know 2 young people whose parents moved when they were at University and both felt quite pushed out, and that they no longer had a "home", but that they were just "visiting" their parents' new house. I know if you have to move now then you have to move now, but I would be going out of my way to put their stuff in rooms in the new house to try to make a connection for them.

Once they are working away after graduation, or once they buy their own home, then take it round to theirs for them to sort through.

Spot on. This is how I feel when visiting my parents. It's still my family house, but there's no sign I was growing up there. My mum rearranged bedrooms, threw away all books etc. :/ This is why I visit so rarely. I'm feeling like random guest from the street. I think it's nice to have small box of children's stuff, even if you can't keep their rooms.

My DD was a boomerang who kept coming back. After doing 2 degrees, having various jobs and coming home numerous times she bought her own house near her work and moved out five years ago. She was 29. My DS did a 3 year college qualification and started work 5 years ago. He saved up and bought a house and left home aged 22 three years ago. After rattling round in a big house alone for a couple of years I downsized to a one bed bungalow a year ago. Both DC went through the stuff they left behind and took what they wanted. I kept a few things of sentimental value. I live quite close to them both now; so they dont need a room at mine. Both have a spare room if I need to stay over with them anytime.

I kept a small box with some things that I am sentimental about they're not really interested in any of it. We downsized a few years ago. Dc all sorted.

I'm a sentimental fool I'll be honest. I've seen a company online - sorry I cant remember the name- where you send of artwork etc and they scan/photograph it and send back as a bound photo album for each child. Then you could have book on shelf instead of piles of pictures. Also going to make my kids clothes into a big quilt to snuggle on sofa with, there's loads of companies that do this, or Etsy, or can do yourself if your crafty!

@AliceS1994 Im also a sentimental fool (hence the 20 years of artwork!) and already had the blankets made with their HS sports tshirts that they take to Uni/have at their apartments.