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!

EVery time we visited iLs we had to visit the "Bed of old crap" which was stuff that she no longer wanted that was laid out on the spare bed for our perusal. We got some ok stuff from it but then began to see things that we or our children had given them as gifts so were quite angry about that,

My mum always grows far too much fruit and veg, way more than what she needs. I also grow my own, and honestly don’t want she grows as it’s always a bit crap (tomatoes always have a bit of blight, potatoes always scabby). She says “do you want any potatoes” etc and I say no thanks mum, I’ve got plenty of my own. She’ll moan and gripe that she’s got more than she knows what to do with, then we’ll find a carrier bag of scabby horrible spuds or mouldy/ wormy fruit hanging off the gate a few weeks later and get a text saying “left you some potatoes on the gate”. I always pull her up on it and say they’ll just go on the compost. I don’t think she cares, I think she hates the idea of waste and would rather offload the decision to bin them on someone else than do it herself.

What, even the 40 year old hair my mum wanted me to keep?!!

It's really interesting how many of us have these experiences.

I wonder what it's about.

My mum sometimes will even sneak stuff into my house that I specifically said I didn't want.

I think there's something around trying to impose themselves, trying to mark territory

I don’t think she cares, I think she hates the idea of waste and would rather offload the decision to bin them on someone else than do it herself.

This is exactly the problem with my mum. She's at peace being wasteful by proxy.

Also it means my garden waste bins are filled with fermenting fruit and maggots instead of hers, which she keeps immaculately clean and odour-free.

My MIL has frequent clearouts as she "doesn't like clutter", so she dumps all that shit on us. In the past she's flogged or tried to flog:

A trouser press (!)
Various Beatrix Potter trinkets
A dirty old bike
Vases
Two tacky teapots
Old coins
Weird jewellery
A breadmaker
Old plates
Random (opened) food that we don't like such as bakewell tarts, quiches , pies

It never stops.

Yeah, but no. It's not kind or misplaced loving behaviour, at all. It's actually quite selfish behaviour.

My MIL used to arrive with carrier bags full of miscellaneous tat. It was all just junk from her own house that she didn't want anymore. But she didn't have the self confidence required to own an executive decision to bin it. She also grew up in relative poverty so felt huge guilt at throwing anything away, ever. She chose to mitigate her own entrenched guilt by pretending she was gifting it to me.

So instead she very happily shunted the responsibility and effort onto my shoulders. Nothing remotely 'loving' about it, whatsoever.

Same! Every time i go to my mums, which is several times a week, I come home with half a cake, some yogurt, 2 newspapers and their supplements, a magazine or 5, some vitamins, a bra and a casserole dish no longer used.

Give it back to her if she’s that precious about it. Say thank you but we really don’t have room and I know you are attached so here it is. And leave it with her

Ewwe 🤮 didn't realise people kept that sort of things 😱😂
my mother in law a bit like that but thankfully kept mostly to her house. opend the press other day and I counted 7 teapots not including the three on the counter
what she do yesterday went to charity shop and bought another. we have only recently moved house and she was aghast I bought a bag of tea pots mugs and glasses to the charity shop. I was like I have one teapot that's what's used I don't need 3 others ?

This is my mother in law, my heart sank when she started volunteering at the local charity shop 🙈😂. Honestly just say thanks and they go in the bin, she’s got the hint and the ‘gifts’ are rare now. Xx

Yes! With my mum it's clothes she bought and doesn't like. And she smokes so they smell foul. She's also keen to give my DD giant teddy bears and fleece blankets - we have tons!

I just add it straight to our charity pile!

Oh, I thought from the title she was probably cleaning up after dogs in your area...

I think it's a type of hoarding where they want to fill your house up with crap rather than their own. I'm sure I'd be more understanding if I'd had a normal, kind mum, but I didn't

😂😂😂 LOVING this thread title and your posts!

I AM the MIL!!!!

But my DIL lives a long way away so i haven't sent too much (hope not annyway!)

You know why we do it - it's because we struggled so much for money when ours were little that we assume you also can't afford to clothe your kids.

I absolutely loved a big bin liner full of off casts when mine were little as i just could not afford to buy new clothes in that quantity. So i never said no.

And - let's face it, it's always handy for a kid to have 5 coats and 30 jumpers - always a clean one available when you need it🤣

This has been the most useful thread i have ever seen on MN.

I am really not going to be sending any more charity shop tat😂

On a decluttering programme this was referred to as 'reverse robbing'.

Honestly, yes - i thought i was helping out as there's a cost of living crisis on!!

I don't think there was a col when mine were little in the early 90s but i could not afford any new baby clothes at all. My kids were all second hands as babies and young kids.

I think i just assumed life was tougher now for you young ones but maybe it is not.

This thread is a total eye opener for sure lol!

@Anisty for me it's absolutely not about being sniffy about secondhand btw - most of what I buy for myself and the kids is secondhand.

It's about stuff that is rubbish - things like jigsaws with missing pieces.

And excessive numbers of things. It's not useful to have 5 coats, it really isn't. Last year my mum gave me 45 T shirts in my son's size. How is that helpful? It's basically one for every day of a British summer

Ah - well i'm not guilty on the jigsaws but - yes, i had an absolute ABUNDANCE of clothing for all my kids and found it really useful. The only thing i never would have for my own kids is 2nd hand shoes.

Don't get me wrong - if i got a big bin bag full, i didn't keep every item. But i did keep every item that I liked.

And i'm pretty sure it all got used as well. Even now we aren't as hard up, if i see what i think is a bargain in a charity shop, i can't resist.

I do still have a 17yr old at home and my latest 'bargain' was a Hollister jacket for £2. She does wear it sometimes but, thinking about it, i suppose you have sites like Vinted these days. That's where my dd (and maybe my DIL) shop.

Maybe that's what's changed - there was none of that when my older ones were little.

@Anisty I think the thing is that you have to have the time and energy to look through stuff and I prefer to choose when that is.

So as an example - someone on my street WhatsApp group offered up a bag of kids books and I was in the mood and had the time to pick them up, go through them and take the unwanted ones to the charity shop all while the kids were at school

But then the other day my mum dropped off four boxes of random kids books, the kids half looked through them, she dropped them off during a really busy work week and now it's just a huge drag that these are lying all over my living room. I wasn't in the mood and didn't have the time when she dropped them off and that's the difference

My mum does it. Once a week. She’s recently discovered Temu so now we have broken Temu items that were used once added to the pile.

On one hand she is giving it to me because she won’t bin what’s broken. She sees it as wasteful.

On the other - she doesn’t realise that buying loads on Temu, using it once before it breaks is wasteful.

My mother in law recently discovered Temu as well and is hoarding a pile of broken Temu tat in a box in the garage but won’t stop buying it.

☹️ it’s confusing

PS @kiraric - there is definitely a value in 5 coats! There is a specific coat for each kind of UK weather (maybe not needed in other countries, right enough)

I work as a childminder - and coats has been an issue now and again over the past 25 years. Pre schoolers that go everywhere in a car often don't own any coat (just a thick fleece which is not adequate in a Scottish winter in a buggy)

And older kids often own one coat only which is not waterproof. Also not good in Scotland.

I have had older kids that just have one, non waterproof but very warm coat which they are expected to wear in June and July rain (ie when very wet but warm) They have no thin waterproofs at all. So they end up taking the coat off, carrying it and getting soaked plus it's too big to fit in the school bag.

Better 5 2nd hands than one brand new IMO but i am de railing a bit . . .

Genuinely, though, OP, I am not sending any charity shop stuff to DIL after reading this thread!

One day i will tell her about it - this really has been the most impactful thread ever for me.

I live in the UK and genuinely do not want 5 coats cluttering up my house.

What I need is two - one thick and one thin, both waterproof. My mum must have given me dozens, I hope the charity shop sold them..

Yeah - i totally get it. I really do. And i also think your points are very understandable. I think my DIL will be so glad i saw this thread.

And my gd is only a year old so i think i have only sent 3 bags so far. Clothes only.

And that's it stopped! Promise!

I think typed the T word too often 😂