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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Either this isn't normal or I'm a shit mum!

77 replies

SartBimpson · 20/03/2019 13:31

Was chatting to a mum at the school this morning, she was asking if we got to keep all our dc's schoolbooks at the end of term. Told her I didn't think so, she said it's a shame as she keeps everything of her dd's. So much so, she has a storage unit . She said she just moved a 'massive' box there from Jan '19. Surely this isn't normal? Our dc are year 1 btw

OP posts:

CanoeDoYouThinkYouAre · 20/03/2019 14:31

Is her name Nancy Donahue? I'm reminded of the episode of The Middle when Nancy opens her garage door to reveal a wall of perfectly organised storage boxes containing every art project her kids had done!

Safirexx · 20/03/2019 14:32

For those accusing OP of mean-spiritedness, some of us more anxious mums would be thrown into a tailspin by receiving such a revelation, and would genuinely want to be reassured that we were not bad parents damaging our kids by not (wanting to) keep every last "masterpiece" of theirs. I've found this thread very helpful in getting a sense of perspective and shedding guilt. I declutter their stuff regularly (chiding myself all the while, but I can't live with it at all) and am relieved to discover that others do too!

ILiveInSalemsLot · 20/03/2019 14:34

I’ve got nothing from my school years and I don’t care.
So, I just chuck all of dcs stuff too and hope they won’t care either.

Nameusernameuser · 20/03/2019 14:36

My mum kept a few school books of mine because I changed school half way through first school and they gave my mum the books to pass on, I found them when I was about 18 and read stories from my English book id written in year 2.
One was about dead bodies in a graveyard

Wallywobbles · 20/03/2019 14:37

I put all this shit into boxes for each child. When we moved house they went through them and I said that they would have to keep anything they kept in their rooms. They kept precisely nothing. I retrieved the odd bit like class photos.

chitofftheshovel · 20/03/2019 14:40

Is her name Beverley Goldberg?

oohyoudevilyou · 20/03/2019 14:42

If by "storage unit" you mean this woman rents a room at somewhere like Big Yellow Storage, YANBU - It's totally bonkers. We had to pay for storage for a month when we moved house and it was extortionate, but unavoidable. Send her a link to the Marie Kondo website.

AnnieMay100 · 20/03/2019 14:46

I must not be normal then I have a folder for every school year starting from nursery with all their paintings crafts and certificates over the years. There’s a lot but I love it all and when I’m old I’ll love having it to look through. My parents threw everything of mine in the bin and made me feel like it was rubbish, I don’t want my children to have that feeling. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but doesn’t make you a good or bad mum either way.

Drum2018 · 20/03/2019 14:48

I have one decorative box each for my kids and in it are yearly school reports, a handful of drawings from over the years. I have their first 'my news' copy too, I think. I have their birth/christening cards but no yearly birthday cards. While it's nice to look back on things like that as an adult, I don't think any of them would appreciate a boot full of stuff arriving when they eventually move out.

ShartOfGold · 20/03/2019 14:56

@Alexa I think it’s odd that you can no longer make a throwaway comment at the school gate, without someone coming home and making a thread purely to bitch about how abnormal you are.
But seriously, what does it matter to anyone?

ShannonRockallMalin · 20/03/2019 14:56

A tip I read was to take photos of DCs craft/artwork etc and then bin the actual thing. Saves storing a load of old pringles tubes stuck together with sellotape. I went to art college and have done this with a lot of my artwork too.

On a similar note, an old school friend of mine commented the other the day that she still has all the letters and cards we sent each other in our teens (we’re in out 40s now). I binned all that stuff years ago. How much of this sort of stuff do other people keep?

Shodan · 20/03/2019 15:01

I do keep a lot tbh, especially school reports, certificates etc. And birthday/mothers' day cards. But paintings- I had to limit those very early on, because you get eleventy million from nursery, and infant school

However I cannot for the life of me find ds2's workbooks from last year, which his teacher requested back from me to put on show for some event or other. I feel a bit guilty that I don't know where they are...

My mum kept a small folder for all of us, and I do wish she'd included some paintings or something, because most of mine is reports saying 'could do better' and 'must do her homework'.

wheretheydwell · 20/03/2019 15:03

I think it’s odd that you can no longer make a throwaway comment at the school gate, without someone coming home and making a thread purely to bitch about how abnormal you are.
But seriously, what does it matter to anyone?

This!

Springwalk · 20/03/2019 15:08

I keep school reports, special pictures, cards and excellent pieces of poetry. That is it. No one wants to see 18 years of school work. Nobody. It is added to the firewood.
I am a massive collector, we have memory boxes for everything, but there is no one ever that wanted to go through their biology notes in future years unless they are very very bored or have no life whatsoever, and that is not really what we had in mind for our kid soon to be adult.

cantbearsed1 · 20/03/2019 15:16

Yes, agree that no one wants to go through their future biology notes. I had loads of stories and poems I had written, and I have only ever read one of them. I binned most of them last year.

TeaforTwoBiscuitOrThree · 20/03/2019 15:21

To you it may not seem normal, to her it does seem normal. Does it matter? Meh.

FuckertyBoo · 20/03/2019 15:21

Every single workbook? Jeez, nope! That is not the norm.

I will say though, that my dad, for some reason, insisted on keeping my annual school reports for every year I was at school, (in the uk). My mum thought he was a bit bonkers for doing so, but they recently came in really handy, when I had to prove my having been resident in the uk. My schools had destroyed my records, so it was really lucky we had these reports to back up what I was saying.

Wallsbangers · 20/03/2019 15:30

My parents kept everything we brought home as kids and stored it in the attic. We did a mass clear out a few years ago, there were so many loose pieces of bowtie pasta covered in glitter, paint, glue etc.

EllaEllaE · 20/03/2019 15:40

my mum keeps trying to give me my old school books. They make me cringe and I don't want them at all. but I also then feel guilty for throwing them away after she kept them. Urgh. I think the healthy thing to do is keep a small amount of stuff with the understanding that you are probably doing it for yourself and your own happy memories, not for your kid.

cantbearsed1 · 20/03/2019 15:53

What was nice were the congratulations cards my mum gave me from my birth.

roboticmom · 20/03/2019 15:55

I'm a keeper. I laugh about it. I don't do it so my kids can have it one day- I do it so I can look at it and remember.

My routine is that I have a spot where I put their art work until I have time to go through it. Things that are rushed or repetitive get thrown straight in recycling.Then I stick the art work in scrapbooks. I end up with about a smallish plastic container for each year including some school work, notes from friends, mementos of things we did, maybe a favourite item of clothing. We have an attic so it goes up there.

We are moving right now and it's a PITA. But I love it. A day going through it is a guilty pleasure for me. The boxes have gotten smaller as they've gotten bigger. So hopefully by the time they are teens I'll be down to a file on the cloud! The first few years of school were the worst for cute stuff I couldn't bear to part with.

None of my friends keep stuff like I do. It makes me happy though, so I haven't changed my ways. That said, if I had to take out a storage unit, I would be taking pictures instead of keeping.

aintnothinbutagstring · 20/03/2019 15:58

I keep a few things from the end of each school year, photos the school has taken of them actually in class doing stuff, art, workbooks only if they have funny things that they'll laugh at in years to come. Definitely not all of it. She must have been joking about the storage unit

NoooorthonerMum · 20/03/2019 16:20

I keep one or two things per yeary eldest is y2 and youngest Yr and I have enough to fill half a box in one of those cube storage units.

I tend to put art work in a temporary box then when it gets full soft through and chuck 90%. Mainly because I feel guilty throwing art work straight in the bin (and sometimes DC find it in the bin a d are shocked it's not a treasured collectable).

Dieu · 20/03/2019 16:37

I'm guessing she only has one child prodigy.

Yabbers · 20/03/2019 18:35

Mine is in P5, I’ve kept all her school stuff. It takes up about 3 folders. What the hell are they doing that needs a storage unit?

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