Does your mum bring bags of random shit to your house?

[whyeyeeyeeyeeye]

I swear DM can’t walk past a charity shop or a tat shop without buying something. She doesn’t care if it’s age appropriate for DC, in good condition if it’s for any of us, whether we’d like it, whether it’s worth the £…it’s infuriating. I’m just re-donating bags and bags of stuff after every visit. She even sends parcels of this in the post because we don’t live close. Today received 3 T-shirts for the kids in sizes way too big, a recipe book stand with splashes of someone else’s cooking on it, a 2024 diary and a kids’ game with half the pieces missing. I wish she’d just put a fiver in an account for the kids every time she got the urge. Or even just donated the money to the charity!

OMG saw the title and burst out laughing.

When my parents were downsizing they would bring boxes of tat when they visited, claiming it was family heirlooms that I should keep, or stuff that was mine back when I was growing up. Or maybe it’s something “they want to pass on to their grandchildren” Basically- they didn’t want to get rid of it but didn’t want to keep either.

On one occasion they actually hid a box in my spare room and I didn’t notice until they had already left.

I’ve largely kept the peace but my sister wasn’t so diplomatic and she had some hilarious blow-ups with mum about it. Never realised a set of of old cushion covers could cause such mortal offence 😂

Mine it's random crap from the loft. No, I don't want this dusty junk you should have thrown away 3 houses ago. I didn't want it then, I don't want it now (if it was ever actually mine in the first place)!

Have also laughed reading this thread. My mother used to volunteer in a charity shop so she'd get staff discount on top of the already bargain prices for tat. She died a decade ago and I do sort of miss it.

I'm a grandmother myself now and I do sort of get it. Whenever DD and family visit or I visit them it's an inner battle not to turn up with stuff or send them back home with stuff.

It must be something instinctual although logically I can recognise it might be less than helpful sometimes so I try to rein it in.

Yes. Usually only 1-2 items per visit though

This sums up my MIL pretty well. Her visits always give me anxiety beforehand cause I know there's going to be a bag of broken, ancient charity shop toys whipped out in our already cluttered living room. She knows I don't like it and always says "Don't worry, I know Crunchy will have to approve the toys before DC can have any" 🙄 thanks for the unnecessary guilt trip MIL!

As far as I’m aware I don’t have any belongings there.

And I’m not going to her house and through all of her possessions to go ‘oh look here is a plate I enjoyed using as a toddler, this must be mine so I’ll take it off your hands’.

I’ve made it very clear I don’t want anything, and if for some reason some item of mine is there, bin it!

My MIL used to bless her! Well, give me random crap. Used to thank her politely and take it to a charity shop out of area! It's a loving thing I think, from a generation that didn't have much.

My parents also downsized recently and I was the recipient of so much random shit. All the paintings/cards/drawings my kids had done over the years, my wedding acceptance letters, my christening cards, plus gown and shawl. The best thing was a letter Mums best friend had written to her after the birth of her firstborn - me! It said. So sorry you didn't get the boy you wanted. You must be so disappointed!! I can only assume Mum didnt read it before gifting me the damn thing!

That is my dad’s job.

always stuff he wants to get rid of from his own house. I once had to take a suitcase of old golf balls home on a plane. Thankfully he had an old suitcase to use and I had the luggage allowance. I got rid of them by visiting the driving range many, many times.

most stuff just goes in the charity box.

Oh god I'm glad its not just my MIL! Their house is a hoarders paradise and my husband/DD have a good dollop of hoarding in their blood too.

Bags of absolute shite, which like many of you, are just deposited around the house. And then my husband will stand and fret over how potentially useful it could be and how "wasteful" we would be to throw it out. I'd say 50% is kept and she bloody knows what it does to him. The only thing he will relent to is "giving it to charity" even though I'm certain they don't want it/can't sell it and I feel guilty! We're talking 2004 Road maps and national trust pamphlets here!

It's bizarre... but my most frequented charity shop is on the same site as the tip... strange that.

It’s your stuff and she probably doesn’t want to give it house room. Couldn’t you go round and remove it?

@SoNiceToComeHomeTo as I said above, as far as I am aware I don’t have anything there (she’s moved three or fours times since I left) - and most of the stuff is random / sentimental stuff she’s obviously decided to keep.

I have many times in the past made it very clear that I don’t want my old toys, random items of clothing she’s salvaged etc.

No I am not going to go raking through all her belongings to try and identify if anything may have some link to me and therefore be part of a future ‘gift’. How would I possibly know anyway.

She does it to all my siblings too, I am not the guilty party here.

This thread has honestly made me feel so sad.
While I understand how annoying it must be to receive unwanted items, and how it takes up so much space and then time to dispose of it, I can't help but feel for the ladies who (probably) out of love, has thought of loved ones, thought that with the col crisis that the recipients might be struggling...
I could not, ever ... moan at anyone offering me anything out of love and concern.
Maybe these ladies have a deep desire to be loved too, to be thought of as kind.
I guess way too soft, but reading all these posts about terrible mums- mil - step mums etc sounds not only ungrateful, but dismissive of (maybe misplaced) acts of kindness.
I don't do this to my dc, as they've made it more than clear that they wish to be minimalistic...

Ha, this is what my mum does too. It is like she is trying to clear her house out by offloading everything to my house!

Yes! Bags of clothes. Clothes from the charity shop and clothes from the supermarket, bargain ones. All for the kids. Toys at birthdays and Christmas. I threw out lots of toys , broken ones went in the bin and a bag for the charity shop. Feeling proud I told her and she said ' if they're still working you should keep them' arghh maybe if we lived in a mansion but currently we don't have the room!! She is an absolute hoarder , buys so much tat in the sales for herself too. I wish she'd keep all the money she spends on "bargains" and buy herself some good shoes and clothes. Everything she buys herself is from the sales. What good is 50 pairs of flip flops and mountains of summer clothes when we don't even get a summer 🤣

I saw one in the wild. A woman next to me at the Tesco F&F sale rail. They had tops reduced to £1.75.
She was with a friend and was talking. They only had biggest sizes left and she was rummaging for a smaller size than the 20-22 they had left. Took one anyway and said she would give it to (name). Her friend said ‘but she’s really slim!’. The bargain hunter said yes but she’s just had a baby so she can wear it around the house.

Last time my mum came to see me she bought some tracksuit bottoms from when I was 13 "in case I wanted them". They were Reebok which I wouldn't never have work, not washed in 25 years and covered in dog hair AND I don't remember them at all. I said to throw them away to which she made a sad face because they were a memory. I question if they were even mine.

The other thing that my mum does is - if I buy anything for myself, she will first of all head tilt and repeat in tones of wonder and awe "you bought that" because obviously I usually shoplift.

And then she will buy me endless cheaper, more broken replicas of the thing I bought because she is so shocked that I bought something when she could have bought me a worse version second hand or broken. Quite often the sort of thing is something you really only need one of.

No. She did buy me a book on simple living and decluttering though.
I live in a dinky 3 bed with teens and we're an active family. Loads of outdoor clothes and shoes, there's no where to put it all.
She lives in a 5 bed. Her hall and landing are the same sq footage as my entire house. She has storage coming out of her ears. She's not better at simple living.

My mum was dreadful for this , we have just cleared her house , as she has gone into a home and she is determined to give me some hideous artificial flowers .

@HelloYouGuys

So I am not really sure that my mum does do it out of love.

I think quite a lot of it is about not liking to get rid of things and outsourcing that to me rather than doing it herself

I also think a lot of it is about a feeling that we don't deserve new nice things and wanting to prevent me from buying any of those

I think she also likes to feel like she has an influence over my home.

And I think she enjoys bargain hunting and wants to indulge that hobby at the expense of my house

@kiraric , my mum is a narcissist, her house was a hoarded embarrassment. She seemed to feel the need to share that when she visited.

My dad used to do this before he passed. The kids used to find it very exciting because you never knew what he would pull out of his bag. Like a sort of pound-shop, year round Santa. Really miss him now.

My friend mum does this, I'm afraid I'm brutal though, I would say mum stop buying tat for the kids we really don't want it. It's rubbish that's why it's there in the first place, people don't want it.
If you want to do something put a £5 into their accounts towards university.
I really don't want anymore stuff arriving that is no use to me please and also a waste of your money.

I think it's definitely a generational thing. My Mum and Dad both grew up quite poor and although they've done pretty well my Mum just cannot pass up a bargain. When I had my little flat she was desperate to fill it with ornaments and plants. She did it because she loved me without realising that I might have my own style and might want to furnish it myself!

I don't know what it is with Mothers and inability to listen to their adult children. It's endemic.