Ok, I'm fairly sure I am BU but can I just check if I'm the only person in the world who would be annoyed by this?

[morethanlaundry]

I have two DS' ages 4 and 6.

My Mum and Dad go on holiday A LOT. Probably, go abroad maybe once a month/once every 6 weeks.

About 2 years ago my Mum started sending postcards to the DS' from her holiday. Fine, lovely.

Then she decided she was going to buy a keepsake box for the DS' to keep all of the postcards from her holidays in.

It's about the size of a large shoebox - we have no storage in this house (which she knows). I used to keep it under the computer desk but the DS' kept getting hold of it, ripping the postcards or scribbling them.

I've moved it to the garage now, and I will be honest - I don't put every single postcard they send in it. My Mum is unhappy that the box is out in the garage, that I am not filing the postcards or (presumably) going through them again.

I know it's not a HUGE thing she's asking of me, but I find it annoying because:

a) there is nowhere in the house available to store them and she knows this
b) she is the least sentimental person ever and anything the DC draw or make for her gets sent out
c) at the end of the day these are memories of HER holidays, not the DS' and they are just not of the mindset, at 6 and 4 (or ever??) to want to treasure a box of postcards from someone else's holidays.

How unreasonable am I being? Would you just suck it up and file everyone of them and lovingly bring them out every now and then?

It's not really an option to leave the box at her house (as tempting as it is) as they don't live locally.

I'd nip this in the bud now. You don't need any extra clutter in your house. Tell her to keep the shoebox at hers with the existing postcards in it. The next time she's away she could write as usual. You could display it for a week or so and then take it to hers to be added to the box. If she can be arsed she can look a them with the DSs when they visit her. Problem transferred to her. If she doesn't want the the shoebox why the hell should you??

I'd go with just chucking them. If they don't mean anything to your kids why generate more clutter. Love the idea of trying to reason with her with the child letter analogy.

The example message seems quite appropriate for their ages tbh, she can hardly write loads of intellectual comments on the socio-political landscape of the country they're visiting!
I really regret not keeping my postcards and letters from my grandparents, they were a huge part of my life and I miss them and feel sad that the postcards they took the time and effort to buy and write have ended up in landfill somewhere. It's my fault, I threw them out as a teenager and will always regret it.

I would hit the roof if a 4 year old and a 6 year old were scribbling all over postcards they know they weren't supposed to damage.
4 & 6 is more than old enough to know to leave something alone.

I think YABVU. I find it hard to believe it is difficult to store a shoe box somewhere in your house.

I wish I had a shoebox full of postcards from my grandparents. It actually upsets me that anyone could be so nasty about it.

No. This is crazy. Buying them a memory box is nice but these are her memories. Why would they be the slightest bit interested in say 5 years of the holidays their grandparents has been on. I will admit to keeping the odd postcard but this is ridiculous.
I know what you mean about storage. We have a small cupboard where we keep sentimental things, first birthday cards, baby record book etc but it's due for a cull

I think you're being massively unreasonable I'm afraid.
It's a shoebox and I think what your mum is doing is lovely. You might think they don't care now, but when their grandparents die, which they enviably will, it'll be lovely to read back on them. It's not just memories of their holiday, it's memories of your mum writing to your children.

We have ZERO storage either so I get the problem there, but I think you'd be unreasonable to throw them out, not keep them, not put them in the box. It's a shoebox.

*not enviably. Inevitably!

YABU.

Yes but it's a shoebox you've had thrust upon you, not one you've chosen to keep.

OK, I can probably find space in my house for a shoebox, if I wanted to keep a shoebox of stuff of my own volition. But someone else demanding that I find somewhere for a shoebox just because they want me to keep it - that would give me the rage. Especially if they have a big house!

Fuck that. Put them in an envelope, give them back to her. If she wants them kept, she can keep them.

Just married - the waits til she gets home to post them so they all have UK stamps and postmarks

What? And miss on those lovely stamps from overseas countries?
I always save the stamps from letters or parcels I receive from other countries.

They haven't scribbled on them recently. They scribbled on them pre-garage, they youngest would have been 2! Old enough to treasure them? Um, no, not really.

As an adult now i may be interested to see post cards from my GPs era (1920s ish), as it would all have been so different from now. Imagine a box of grainy old 1920s black and white photos of cruise liners and little private planes. Women in long skirts and big hats, men in their smart suits and panama hats.

However that isn't what the OPs DCs are going to end up with is it?

Especially in light of the heartless disregard of all things sentimental on your mothers side regarding you and her GCs i'd bin then OP. And tell her why. ie no space, no interest. She's obviously hard as nails enough to take it.

I have tons of space at my house and a whole wardrobe dedicated to just my shoes - in shoe boxes.
I still wouldn't keep that box and the post cards - the whole lot would go in the recycling.
My home is not some one else's memory box.

My father used to travel a lot for work and would send me and my siblings postcards most times. We read them and they would stay out for a while until they were replaced by something else and thrown away. Sometimes one would have a really nice picture and one of us would decide to keep it for a while. As we got older we might feel a card was special and keep it, but most were similar to the one the OP cites (although they all had proper foreign stamps, sending them from the UK seems very weird to me).

My father died last year. I have zero regrets about not being able to look over and read every card he ever sent us. I have a few more personal letters/cards I cherish but volume isn't important is it?

Oh, and I think the request is very cheeky really. Your mother doesn't get to decide what you keep, you do.

My MIL used to buy the kids things and we would say we haven't got room to store it. She would reply by saying she had a box for them to keep it in. One day I was so fed up I told her I was buying her an elephant but it was OK as I had a box for her to keep it in. I don't think she ever understood me.

BTW, are you sure she actually goes abroad?
I'd ask for postal evidence.

Some people are far too invested in stuff. Would people really get cross with their primary aged children - see it as a moral failing - for scribbling on a postcard which was sent to them?? Yes grandparents will die one day (hopefully decades in the future) and it will be nice to have keepsakes but do people really hang on to everything their loved one ha ever touched?

As an adult now i may be interested to see post cards from my GPs era (1920s ish), as it would all have been so different from now. Imagine a box of grainy old 1920s black and white photos of cruise liners and little private planes. Women in long skirts and big hats, men in their smart suits and panama hats.

However that isn't what the OPs DCs are going to end up with is it?

No, I don't think Lascaux cave will get new paintings over the old ones.

lweji.

Well...for as long as there are people on this earth who think it's a great thing for her to do and not at all strange and that I am heartless for considering not doing it than I have to keep the bloody things. That will be the chink that she uses to force her point home with.

Thank you for all of your opinions - from both sides of the barricade.

I will keep them, but in a way that is convenient to me - not to her.

For the record - if this idea had grown organically and come from one of the DC that'd be great and I'd support it wholeheartedly. I can't imagine being that egotistical that I'd assume someone else wanted a box of my holiday mementos but thank you to those of you who have kindly pointed out that I should do it because one day she won't be around any more.

I feel all warm and fuzzy now

I love AIBU!

I think that she is trying to control you and irritate you. Holidaying that often, while you live in a house that cramped is of course entirely her prerogative, but she is rather rubbing your noses in it.

I'd bin them. Who wants to remember other people's holidays? I'm glad we've got photos of my grandparents, including holiday ones (on one side, the others sacrificed any luxuries for their children's educations, so no holidays). But postcards aren't even very personal.

OP it's exactly the sort of thing I would find aggravating too. And I agree with you...it is very egotistical of her to expect you to cherish and keep postcards from her frequent bloody holidays!

It's exactly the sort of thing dh's aunt would come up with. She's a right pain in the arse.