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 am disappointed you are taking fine porcelain to the tip.
Why not take it all to one of the many charity shops about?

It’s her estate it would come out of, as long as there’s money there for it why is that a problem? She is doing her kids a favour by removing the obligation feeling.

Add sex toys to that too !

I completely understand. My FIL passed away recently, had us all running around for him for years. He was extremely tight with my dh and his sister, never helped with uni or anything over the years. Never gave grandchildren a penny, we thought it was because he was skint. Yes, he was skint when he died because we've found receipts and bank statements going back over 20 years showing what he blew all his money on. There wasn't enough to pay for his funeral, we've had to stump up for it between us. The final insult is that he'd left hardly anything to his own family but has specifically named his ladyfriend as a beneficiary with a definite amount going to her.

My PILs (born in 1939/1940) also always talked a lot about rationing and were very stingy with presents for their grandchildren. To be fair unlike your parents they lived very frugally. When FIL died and DH was helping MIL to sort out their finances, he was absolutely stunned to find out how much they had sitting in savings. As well as FIL being able to retire in his 50s with a generous pension.

Funnily enough it didn’t occur to me until I was long grown up, to think how unfair it was, that somehow there was the money for my brother to attend a boarding school (admittedly relatively a lot cheaper then) while I never had the riding lessons I so badly wanted - 7/6d (35p) an hour.

I am very tempted to get a skip and hurl every last collectable Franklin mint piece and investment antique ( there should be a special place in hell for those oily tongued dealers) into it off the balcony.

Honestly, do it. You will feel SO much better for it.

There was a thing in that generation I think where they actually felt quite wealthy as pensioners: houses bought (or secure tenancies), NHS for their care, generous old age pension and the first swathe of workplace pensions paying out. My grandma was of similar age and I recognise the Franklin mint and horrendous repro antiques.

We had a family feud over a HIDEOUS Victorian repro cabinet that was to be left to me but the widow kept which then sat in my parents' garage for ten years before someone had the guts to skip it.

But honestly this feels like the anger that is part of the grief cycle, with a bit of mourning for the relationship you didn't have.

If I was your DH, I'd be giving your younger brother an earful though. He should be playing his part in this process.

@TheNinkyNonkyIsATardis sending a hug. That's truly horrible for it to have been so overt.

(And I LOVE your username, you are quite correct!)

That assumes there is an estate for it to come out of. Unfortunately I have seen it have to cone out of friends' pockets.

Same with my grandmother - a neat pile of fresh, unworn, folded jumpers, each one something she'd asked for at Christmas.

I'm certain when we clear out my uncles home I will find a stack of unread books we all bought him as he "loves this and that author" yet we never see him read anything other than the paper.

Oh crumbs!

I've always assumed though, the you would go through a house before letting a clearance company in? But you just don't spend time thinking twice or trying to dispose of anything?

Still a bit traumatised by finding DMs sexy underwear in the house clear out. FAR more traumatised by DAunt’s suggestion I keep and wear it because it had wear left in it!

spoiler alert: the suspenders belts went in the skip 🤣

If there’s enough money in the estate, you still usually have to pay it out of your own pocket upfront while everything is sorted.

That was my understanding of it too, I was wondering because a previous poster described it this way.

Thank you. It will always make me cry a bit to think of it.

Thing is, knowing the family dynamics at play, I know it's definitely thoughtlessness. Which just reinforces the dynamic that I was the forgettable child - the youngest, whose basic needs were met and not much more, because my mum had more children than she could handle and had MH issues herself.

So it can sit around cluttering up their space instead ? No one wants this stuff any more.

When FIL died, MIL wanted to pass his pants on to DH as they still had wear in them. These were NOT sexy pants btw. DH politely declined.

Are you volunteering to help with that?

sorry you are upset, it has probably all made you the resilient hard-working person you are today. Good luck and sending hugs

^ This, but women are expected to do it all. No one blinks these days when we "outsource" childcare, cleaning, gardening because we all work. And yet we are supposed to do all the care and deal with all the aftermath.

@DazedorBemused just get someone in. I am going to.

Re porcelain - charity shops wouldn't take stuff from my parents' house. And auction houses were only interested in a tiny proportion of it.

I suggest a party with porcelain throwing as an activity. Might be cathartic.

No it doesn’t, I think it’s just a way for that poster to feel ok about her choices.

You are pissed off because they preferred your brother (financially) and never helped you out when you were a student. You 100% right to feel resentment. Don't be ashamed of it.

there should be a special place in hell for those oily tongued dealers

Only if its big enough to take the Bradford Exchange shit as well. Their target audience in the 80s was women who grew up poor, had modest amounts of discretionary money for the first time and who thought they were "investing" for future generations. Half of ebay seems to consist of these "con collectables".

I would have no issue with parents, having raised their children to adulthood, spending some money on themselves. I actively encouraged my parents to do this as did my siblings.

Presumably the issue is not that they didn't spend their spare cas on adult children but that one was golden child? You mentioned he was ill as a child - is that the root of the different treatment and were they trying to compensate in money for poorer health/outcomes?

Yes, Christie once said that she never dreamed that she would ever be rich enough to own a car, or poor enough to not have a maid, yet in her lifetime both things became the norm.

As manufactured clutter has become cheaper, domestic help has got harder to find and more expensive, and floor space per person has shrunk in the UK because the population has grown and building has been constrained by planning laws. The result is homes that often feel overstuffed and unmanageable.