To be so angry sorting out my parents stuff

[DazedorBemused]

I've just cleared another carload of stuff from my parents attic. They were born either side of WW2, and talked. Talked so much about rationing, poverty, striking, unions, etc.
My brother was occasionally ill as a child. To compensate he had fancy Lego, computers when they first came out, hand held video games.
The contrast between his pricy toys and my enjoy your family board game type stuff is obvious.
Then my parents got into collecting stuff - porcelain, dinner services, up scaled their Christmas decorations again and again.

I'm sorting through all this stuff and finding receipts for expensive trivial stuff in the early 90s when I was at uni, working two term time jobs and full-time in the holidays and I'm a 50 year old woman upset at having to go to the tip again.

I cleared a lot of my parents' broken appliances, old computers, dirty toys, and random sheets before they retired and moved -- with help from my DF but resistance from my DM. My DM now talks about Swedish death cleaning and not having too much stuff but in reality their house is accumulating more, not less. I did mention honestly it was likely to end up in a skip if she doesn't actually do something with it. None of us live near them and have busy lives so won't have time to sort through crammed cupboards.

YANBU OP it’s the final smack in the face of favouritism. ILs home is similarly rammed with collectible tat and the plan is to do a quick sweep for anything we want- like photos we’ve given them of our DC, and then hand the keys to a house clearance company. Save yourself further pain and consider doing the same.

I have a friend who is currently being hounded by their ungrateful grabby kids into downsizing the family home and getting rid of their possessions purely so the kids can have "their" inheritance early. There is no thought for my friend's comfort as they age, only how much they can extract for themselves. Why should their parent enjoy the nice home they worked hard to pay for when they could wait for death in a one bedroom flat just as easily? They are making their parent absolutely miserable with their demands. Watching that has made me think that everyone should spend as they see fit. Jewellery, antiques, perfume, whatever floats their boat. Pile it high and enjoy it. I'm half hoping death duties will sting these kids right in their selfish backsides in a couple of years.

Things change over time. I was born in a house with no bathroom, toilet at the far end of shared backyard. Lived in a slum area, constant battle with vermin. Prostitutes all around, I got kerb crawled at 8 am in school uniform. Left school at 15.

I worked hard, studied part time to get my qualifications and built up a good career. We own a 4 bed detached house, cars, money in the bank, pension.

So you can look at my life now or then both versions are true.

I suppose the difference is I'm happy to help my kids if they need it.

I’m getting a really strange sense of déjà vu. It’s almost as if this discussion has been had a couple of times already.

Have you seen your friends home @Andsoitbeganagain. Yes it may be all 4 are money grabbing (your friend as the one who bought them up does know their personalities) or other side is they are concerned mum is living in a large unsuitable house and hoarding tat they’ll have to sort out. My mil’s quality of life would be 100% better in a 1 bed flat.

This is what I was going to say. A friend’s mum is in a large 4 bed, full of clutter. It’s entirely impractical for her now she’s getting older and less mobile, but she refuses to consider moving. Fully expects my friend to care for her though. My friend is in despair over it.

Exactly. It's time, headspace, effort and just resources generally, at a time when you probably feel pretty wrecked. With no guarantee of financial benefit for either the estate or a charity shop.

We Boomers had it better than many, that’s true - but the working class Boomer experience was very different from that of the middle class experience.

My dad (who served during Ww2) saved every penny until he was able to afford a one bedroom cold water flat in his 30s only to have it taken off him via compulsory purchase for very little money when he was 48.

3 of us had lived in that one bed flat. Inside toilet, one Belfast sink in the scullery.

In the same block, there was one family with 3 children and 3 adults.

In another, a couple with 5 children. Same set up as us - one bedroom, living room, scullery, toilet. That was the 1960s/ early ‘70s.

I can’t complain. I’ve never been wealthy, but I got a uni grant and I’m still living in the same 2 bed house I bought in ‘87. Still the same ‘70s carpets as when I bought it and mainly 2nd hand furniture.

People from middle class families had a very different experience.

If it seems that Boomers are always banging on about the war, that’s because those of us whose parents survived it are very aware of the profound effect that it had on them.

Only when I was an adult did I find out that Dad’s ‘leg trouble’ had been caused by blast injuries from the same missile that blew his best friend apart.

Around the same time, I heard of how my mum’s eldest sister met her husband. He’d survived Dunkirk and had later been wounded in the Normandy landings and repatriated to a hospital in Dundee. My aunt was his nurse.

We Boomers were aware of how lucky we were. I thought - and still think - that it was a betrayal when higher education grants were stopped. I do remember one fellow student complaining bitterly that it wasn’t fair that I got the full grant because of my parents’ low income: she was only getting the 50 pound minimum ‘book allowance’. It turned out that both her parents and 3 grandparents were doctors and were supporting her. (She told me this while she was complaining.) She got much more from them in a term than I got in a year.

Like me, however, she had no tuition fees to pay. So yes - when grants and free tuition were taken away, I felt that those responsible were pulling up the ladder behind them.

The point is it’s irrelevant that it’s normal that most students work during university, because it wasn’t the norm in OP’s family.

That’s the bit your posts didn’t acknowledge, so that’s why you see multiple people pointing it out as deja vu.

I'm not quite there yet but I think I can recommend a skip. It currently feels like death from a 1000 decisions. And because my parents were talkers it feels like I can hear their opinions and their reasoning and their emotional journey to get there and then I put it in the car for the tip.
I think we are going to get a clearance firm in, it's not doable with normal cars and lives and work and our own kids.

A few years ago we were given a few things which we promptly sold. To be honest by the time you added up petrol, a day off to visit, research time, packing and posting, we made probably half minimum wage. And it made me crazy because I wasn't even on HRT at that point. And it was one of the valuable collectables mentioned.

DH's parents are older, and still alive and although they have a big house, lots of stuff, I think the emotions will be very different. There's not so much baggage, their relationship has evolved throughout their lives whereas mine got stuck at the 'we know best as your parents' stage.

Okey dokey.

Can you imagine watching your children struggle with 2 jobs and study and then choose not to help them but to buy crap instead?

I think this has been a big, recent shift in values too. Because from the 1950s - 1990s tertiary education was either free or not considered necessary, and housing was way more affordable, the idea of financially supporting/helping your children past the age of 18 probably wasn’t a necessary consideration. I know a few of people of my age (mid/late 40s) who had help from their parents to buy a house (including being able to live in the family home rent-free to save) but most of us just rented privately/lived in houseshares in our 20s and muddled through until we could afford a deposit.

Now parents are aware that university is a huge expense and getting on the housing ladder is so difficult, there’s much more focus and priority on being able to financially help your children well into adulthood. There was a thread here recently asking how much people had saved for their children’s house deposits, and the amounts were amazing!

Again, not trying to defend the OP’s parents but just observing the shift in values.

My husband is a hoarder although I keep it under control as much as possible and you wouldn't realise if you visited. I e told him I dread the thought of sorting it out if he dies before me and dread the kids having to do it even more.

I know some of it is worth money and I could probably get £50k for it if I clean it up and market it well. To be honest I'd be happier if it was just junk and I could skip it all. As it is sorting out the junk from the gems and then selling it all will be a nightmare.

@DazedorBemused I think a skip or clearance company sounds like the way to go. Doing it yourself is adding to the emotional toll.

People don’t support their kids financially at that stage because they hope it will give them the skills to be financially independent.

it makes sense, but I also understand why you’re upset

Hopefully, if the OP is doing all the house clearing etc, she got more than 50% to account for the time spent.

Thanks. Also, calling OP irrational for grieving that she was treated differently to her brother is not cool.

Surely all generations benefited from very low fees for OU courses. IIRC, Wilson introduced it in the 1960s. At that point I'd have expected most people taking advantage of it to be born before the 1940s. Even when the dreaded boomers did do an OU degree that would probably have been because they left school without much in the way of academic qualifications..

Isn’t the situation already unfair? Especially with OP’s brother leaving the mess to OP sort.

A skip and a clearance company sound very sensible. With work, family life etc it’s not practical to spend days sifting through things. I wouldn’t feel guilty at all.

This.

The things my #3 sibling got far out-passed what me and #1 got.
But as an adult, I can see that there was both more time and more money. By the time he was mid-teen, #1 was working and I was nearly. They relaxed things they'd always been tense about and I did resent it at the time.
Things like they'd mention they'd gone out for the day with #3 and had a lovely meal at the café and a meal at a pub on the way home. We never ate out at all before I left home.
But I can see that it was just a change of finances. I think #1 does still resent it a bit. They feel they went without so #3 could have more; but it could have worked out differently, and they wouldn't have been certain they could relax the finances at the point they were that age.

Probably, yes, as she’d very understandably be upset.