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.

Maybe see if yours has similar. They have all sorts stored in temp controlled stacks so don’t deteriorate. They open to school groups and have public exhibitions. There was one I went to with photos and sashes from the 1950s bathing beauty contests as part of seaside heritage. They would have been donated.

I am currently doing this for inlaws both RIP.
Finding inappropriate photos of my mother in law 😔
I shall burn them ,her son does not need to see these.

OP, the collection wasn’t miniature houses, was it? — but seriously, can you give the things away or take to a big charity rather than try to sell them? The time and stress isn’t worth it.

I feel your pain: my parents are now a bit more aware of their relative advantages — despite both having grown up very poor/on council estates, they bought their first flat aged 22 as graduate trainees, have ended up in nice detached house with chunky pensions that none of their kids can possibly afford despite all of us being more highly qualified than they were. It’s taken them a long time to let go of the boomer “we had it hard” mentality, and they still occasionally rhapsodise about how hard they had it, forgetting that they’ve lived through one of the biggest economic long booms in history and done not so badly out of it. It feels pretty weird to be in my forties (in my case) and have been working since I was 21, and never have got as yet to being anywhere near as remotely well off as my parents were…I certainly work much longer hours than either of them ever did (and my mum didn’t work for decades when we were young).

Some of my parents old clothes (from the 1940s - 1960s-ish) went to a theatre costume department!

Solicitors are regulated though so there is a complaints procedure and potential redress.
I used to share an office with someone who did estates work. There was one man who had died and his son never saw him. So solicitor executor was one who looked for suit he was to be buried in, in the cluttered house, had it dry cleaned and I dropped it off at undertakers. Yes they would have charged estate but it was in accordance with dead man’s wishes. His son who was a beneficiary who probably regaled people with tales of extortionate solicitor bills but most people would have done that for their father. It’s like anything - decorating, cleaning, gardening etc you can do yourself or if a paid person does it they charge for their time.

my parents had much richer friends who collected them, and we used to stay with them and I adored all their Lilliput Lane houses!

I would have adored them too. My parents also weren't that well off so we never had any of that but I had friends with the little crystal animals and I thought they were the most charming things ever.

@Juliagreeneyes my mum trained as a special needs teacher late 60s paid for by health dept. They had trips out by coach to various institutions to observe and when she was on placement in a hospital school stayed in nurses accommodation.
Now she’d need to take a loan for fees, pay her own accommodation and sort her own transportation to placements.

Things were very different in the old days @Juliagreeneyes , better in many respects. My dad, for example didn't pass his 11 plus, left school at 15 and went to work for local council. He did his National Service in the Royal Engineers who gave him electrical engineering training. He went back to work for the council who paid for him to get further qualifications by going to day release classes. He eventually ended up as a Member of the Chartered Institute of Electrical Engineers and was responsible in his job for designing and planning the electrics of operating theatres, aeseptic rooms, scanning departments etc in hospitals. I remember the architects drawings and blue prints spread out on the dining room table while he worked in the evenings. He had a good career (although he worked hard for it) without going to university and it was all funded by his employers.

My mum stopped work as soon as my dad finished his National Service but they were still able to have bought their own house in a very nice part of Birmingham by the time I was born.

You don't have to be an executor, even if appointed. You can reject the appointment.

As a dedicated family historian, I would give my right eye to see 5000 photos of now-dead people I never knew!

The usefulness of some of this stuff is definitely in the eye of the beholder...

Well done you for being that forgiving. I can’t and eventually went NC when I realised that bias extended to GC- his DC favoured and mine not.

Even more galling that she alluded to feminism when it suited her.

Yes, exactly - to do this now you’d need excellent STEM A-levels, an engineering degree and probably postgraduate training. Which you’d need to fund yourself at the full fees plus maintenance (and engineering is often a four-year degree). Overall you might start your career more than £80k in debt already, for a starting salary of not a high amount. Good luck then saving a house deposit for even a 2-bed flat in Birmingham (which would be potentially ten times your salary or more, when banks will only lend 3.5 times). You’d need wealthy parents or an inheritance to even think about buying somewhere for years. In the meantime landlords will rip you off with sky-high rents to fund their own investments.

Compared to the housing market boomers had, no wonder young people are angry at the difference. Whatever tales their boomer parents/grandparents like to tell about ice in the inside of the windows in the winter and how hard it was for the six months that interest rates were 15% in 1990, the reality is that they started their working lives with no massive debt, affordable housing, and could expect decent private and state pensions as well as ending up with big chunks of unearned housing wealth even for modest properties. Today’s younger generations face huge debts for education, astonishing levels of rent and housing costs that will go directly to those older and richer than them, and pensions half or a third of the value. And they’ll also be paying higher taxes for the older generations’ healthcare and generous pensions that they won’t themselves get.

This is the economic reality facing younger generations today. So IMO the OP can be justifiably upset at how her parents wasted money on rubbish instead of helping her when she really needed it.

I feel your pain. My parents enjoyed a fairly extravagant life, mother never worked, but didn't help their children financially.

Someone will be along to rebuke me, but fuck'em.

Generally speaking Boomers are really ignorant to what it's like for millennials/gen X - it sounds shady to say but that's the objective truth. They may have had to ration in their childhoods, but then they got free uni, insane capital gains on their property salaries with 8 times the buying power (you could literally support a household on a single entry level salary). Then they have the cheek to say we need to toughen up and we don't own property because we eat too much avocado toast. Meanwhile for millennials, there are so many of us like me and my husband are both in high pressured middle manager jobs and can't afford to have more than one kid. My parents were actually great, but they died in my 20s (so I can relate on the house clearing - it is an arsehole of a job). It's my boomer MIL that is a pain in the buttocks, she's assumed that I'm marinating in cash now I've inherited has decided after a lifetime of zero financial planning of her own that I am her golden ticket/pension.

Can I just say, you are amazing. You've smashed the generational curse for your own children. You've worked hard, while your brother has been pampered and will be looking for his next mother figure.
Honestly, you've done far better then he has.

Ive got baskets and baskets of stuff from when i cleared out mums house....over 12 years ago....i can see her up there going "for gods sake hen, put all that in the bin!"

Weird how we cant let go.

Hear hear! 👏 👏 👏

You never know, she might tip all your stuff when you’re gone.

Sad. This is exactly why I spend my money on memories, holidays, things with my family. I absolutely hate material things and have no probs getting rid of lots of everything. I have moved so many times, never cared about stuff is just that stuff. We come naked into this world, we leave the same way. When my dad died all his clothing to poor people in south America & done. I ve no sentimental value for absolutely anything. I let go of ppl & things, best feeling in the world. That old generation that work work & work and never enjoyed anything is not my case.

Oh gosh OP, that must be difficult to do. I must confess I have lots of fine porcelain dinner and tea services, but not in the loft. When my Mum died I had 4 sisters to help go through everything. Can't you get your brother to help you?

I am in my twilight years, I suppose, although don't feel it, at 71. We cleared 2 houses from our parents. One side, FIL, was obsessed with leaving things in order, as he had a mess to clear when his dad died, but there was still a lot of crap to clear, to tidy the flat for MIL. MIL then moved in with us in her 90s for the last 5 years of her life, so we cleared what was left in the flat, decorated the flat and sold it. A lot of work, quite emotional. My side, lived in a large, terraced house and despite my dad being in the building trade, he did nothing to the house for the last 20 years, wouldn't let anyone else in to do any work either, so when he died the house needed tons of work, and we didn't feel it was safe for mum, but she didn't want to move from the house that had been her home for 60 years. Eventually, we persuaded her to move to a flat and started the job of clearing the house. It was a couple of skips, plus loads to charity shops. Dad had taken out an equity release plan so there was nothing left when we sold it. Luckily, we got mum into a new purpose built flat, rented. When she was moved into a care home, we had already sorted most of her stuff, so it wasn't too onerous. My advice is to start to clear, not to the extent of sitting in an empty house, but certainly all the surplus stuff built up over decades. The thing I don't understand is people getting angry cos their parents spent their own money. We have had a tight 50 years together while we were working, some good years, some not so good and some dreadful financially, so we have also been careful with our spending. We got a weeks holiday most years, but often in a borrowed caravan in the middle of nowhere. We now find ourselves retired with a reasonable sized pot of savings. We could give to our children, but, our dads lived till their late 80s, mum's well into their 90s, and we have seen what is involved with care costs, both in a care home and in our own home , so at the moment, we are not crying poverty, but we are holding onto our savings for care. We can't see either of our kids taking us in, and wouldn't want to commit them to that, so we will have to pay, and it costs. If we are lucky enough to die without care costs then they will get a good pot, if we need care, they may get nothing, but that's the way it goes

OP, let them pay for a house clearance.
I would not be doing it.

We have little of value, but for what there is, I hope my DS has taken notice. I've told him what's probably worth something, and what definitely isn't...I've also said honestly that I can't bear to get rid of my books, but he is very welcome to get clearance in.

There's always one. I mean you btw, not the OP.