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.

Sorry you're feeling that way @DazedorBemused, it's hard enough having to go through your parents belongings without the multitude of thoughts and feelings that hit as you do.

Just to share my own experience I felt bad about how little DM had. A lot of her belongings were toys and games she had for her grandkids, who had outgrown most of them by a few years, and things she had kept from when me and my siblings were small.

Everyone is different and will have different feelings and ways to process things, I would say try not to be too hard on your parents as without them all you're doing is beating yourself up at a time you really need to be kind to yourself.

Yes. That’s pretty much what I was saying. Maybe we are agreeing with each other?

Sounds like your parents fortunes improved as their family grew up, and they enjoyed spending their disposable income.

That happened in my family - between my and younger sis - so she got clothes that let her behind in and I had ones that marked me out as different not great in teen years. There was also a more relax attitude about doing things.

Same parents in same house hold siblings get different parents for a variety of reasons.

You do realise house clearance companies charge a fortune

IL found one local to them that didn't. They were doing Uncle house he going into home and sons NC and frankly IL weren't keen and had their own things - health and emotion wise going on. They though it was actually worth the money as their time and energy was limited at that point.

https://propertysaviour.co.uk/how-much-does-house-clearance-cost/#:~:text=While%20prices%20can%20vary%20significantly,)%3A%20%C2%A3450%20%E2%80%93%20%C2%A3600

While prices can vary significantly, here’s a general guide to house clearance costs in the UK:

• Small clearance (up to 500kg): £175 – £300
• Medium clearance (500-750kg): £300 – £450
• Large clearance (750-1000kg): £450 – £600

I don't know when these ^^ figures were from on that website and there's going to be regional and property size to take into account - but IL paid last year these sort of figures in their area.

The past is a foreign country
Your parents will have been brought up by parents who themselves lived through WW1, a society with workhouses, no safety nets or social security, mass and chronic unemployment, child deaths etc. Life expectancy in UK 1900 35. They lived through 30s 40s, 50s. WW2, bombing, fear of invasion by Nazis, no NHS till 1948 , wagw cuts if 5-10%, housing shortages. They would have been forever fearful that these times would return. This is why they hoard things and money against times when you can buy almost nothing. When getting a job is impossible. Again it was expected that men were responsible for keeping the family, which might explain why more was left to a son? After all women were often sacked when they married and usually if pregnant. I remember an aunt saying she was sorry for men having to work. This was a world with no safety regulations, sick pay, pensions etc. She'd lost her husband in WW1, her nephew in WW2. It seems shocking, unfair and illogical to us to discriminate against women and I was horrified when a friend was left nothing but the family business and house went to her brother so I sympathise Op.

Gosh yes that must feel tough, OP.

I always find it sad when I hear similar stories. My elderly mum never had much but she always made sure to help me out if I needed it and I'll do the same for my kids.

Of course I will expect them to stand on their own two feet and be driven and work for what they want.

But I always found it slightly odd when people with wealth didn't help out more in their lifetime. It's often when people are in their 40s/50s that they could do with a helping hand as expensive with kids and both parents often working (as opposed to earlier generations when perhaps only one income was needed).

I'll make sure to pass on any money when my children are in their midlife so they can make the most of their time then and with their kids. Plus it means any regular monetary gifts (if you can prove what you give is not needed on a day-to-day basis) are not subject to inheritance tax or tax at all!

I have made myself get over this, I wear the jewellery, the clothes and the perfume and burn the posh candles. I also have periodic clear outs so that my adult child will not have to wade through masses of stuff

Right, but that is all about a generation a bit older than OP’s parents, isn’t it? Boomers grew up in an expanding economy, and the few years of hardship in the 70s and early 90s were massively outweighed by a long boom over that period which hugely inflated the value of their houses, pensions, assets, and inflated away debt. They will also have benefited from all sorts of state subsidies that we won’t be getting. You’re talking about a generation of people who had free education (university and vocational/further education), started work in an expanding job market, bought first houses in their early twenties and saw their mortgages inflated away and their houses rise way beyond economic fundamentals, benefited from tax allowances and early pensions as well as being able to cash in on privatisation windfalls, etc.

If OP’s parents were spending money on trivial things and acquiring a whole house full of stuff then they were hardly poor. Yet your post is all about how they feared ending up like their parents’ generation (the wartime generation). But — they didn’t! They lived through the longest peacetime and boom economy of modern history, with only a mild blip of the three day week and a six-month spike in interest rates in 1990 - hardly a terrible fate when you consider the increase in their housing assets of something like twenty times or more what they paid in real terms.

So - why didn’t they grow up, stop whingeing about wars they never fought in, count their blessings and stop hoarding expensive crap and trying to pretend to their kids that they had it so tough? Because - factually and objectively - they really didn’t have it so tough at all, and I’m sick of pretending that they did.

Yes… My cousins are urging me to have a clear out to save bother for their kids. They’ve also told me to appoint a solicitor as my executor. That being the case, I’ve said that they should just get a house clearance firm in… though I am getting my paperwork in order and I’m decluttering for my own benefit.

They’ve heavily hinted that I should also organise a direct cremation. I’m considering planning the full works, even if I’m the only bugger there! (I’m a widow with no children and no siblings.)

Agree with this. When clearing I found papers and letters my mother had written that weren’t nice to read. Basically saying what she thought of me. And that was her last word.

I am so sorry OP it is hard, I literally just did this myself a few months ago

My younger brothers had lots of opinions on how it should be fine (clearing and selling the house) yet it somehow fell to me (I live abroad!)

I got a professional clearing company in. Told them to clear the lot, paid it from inheritance

My brothers were aghast and said I was heartless. I said: you are right, I will leave it to you both to sort in your own time. Meanwhile I booked the clearing guys for 6 weeks in hence.

My brothers both visited once and took a box of stuff they wanted, they also sold a few items

They then admitted defeat and asked was it too late to actually book the clearance guys, I said no problem (they were booked in all along), I am soooo glad I got professionals to do it. They were a proper company that sell stuff on/recycle everything else.

I hope they made money off it, I am just grateful I did not have to do it all as I simply did not have the mental capacity.

Like you I had some misgivings and anger but some of that is also tied up with grief and my parents could not help who they were and they did their best and they were not perfect but neither am I.

Hope you can outsource some of the load, and let it go

It's a very hard job, mentally.

@Juliagreeneyes did the OP not say her parents were pre-war generation? As mine were. That is silent Gen. my parents actually lived through Herman occupation and experienced hunger (Central Europe, born in 1935)

That generation (Silent Gen) was not spoiled and they are not to be confused with Boomers! Very different experience in youth. My parents had half the garage cupboards stuffed with beans and rice as they remember actual starvation as young kids. That stuff never leaves you.

Greedy buggers! I'd be strongly tempted in your circumstances to leave the whole shebang to good causes rather than relatives. That hint about direct cremation really takes the biscuit. Reminds me of a distant cousin of mine who inherited his aunt's estate after she was widowed - house plus savings, a six figure sum. He had not done all that much for her while she was alive, but I think he reminded her of his Dad, her brother, and possibly her Dad too. Anyway, it's umpteen years on from her death and he still hasn't used some of the inheritance to get a headstone erected on her grave. Unforgivable.

If the OP is 50 and went to university in 1992, how can her parents be pre-war generation/silent generation? Being born mid-40s to early 50s is boomer (eg. coming of age in 60s; finishes 1964-ish). Silent gen were born in 1900-1930s.

I get it. I’m going through almost exactly the same at the moment for my recently deceased dad.

Yes, I was just confused as I couldn’t see where anyone had said that having a job at university is unusual.

I'm 3 years older than OP and my dps were both children during the war, so it must be possible!

I am 52
My parents were born in 1928 and 1938.
My father was a telegram boy in ww2 and in the army at the end ofcthe war. My mother's earliest memories are of going to the air-raid shelters during the blitz.

I'm nearly 50, both my parents have died. My dad was born in 1925 and my mum was born in 1929.

We quote a zero quote for emptying a relatives house. Meaning they did it for free but kept it all. It was a large house and the relative hoarded. We had already taken anything that we wanted or thought was valuable and we had already got rid of all the books.

That’s pretty unusual - they had you very very late? That generation normally had first children in their early to mid twenties, but in that case you must have been born in 1973, and so your parents were the age when you were born that my grandparents were (I was born second half of the 70s!) Quite an outlier. My silent gen grandparents have all been dead for fifteen to twenty-five years now, and they didn’t die especially young either (80s and 90s). And my grandmother was 18 at the start of the war and my late grandfathers both fought in it in their early twenties.

But in any case the OP clearly says her parents were born just either side of the war - eg. 1945 and 1950 - so, boomers.

Sympathy, OP - my folks are also boomers (79 and 82) who have an enormous listed 5-bed house where the rooms for 'hosting' are relatively normal and tidy, but the rooms which no-one sees (basement / playroom / games room etc) are just crammed with stuff that has been festering there for years; also a damp garage filled with a deceased relative's furniture which is now quietly rotting away. They, too, have very substantial savings, pensions, private healthcare, and have owned their home outright for decades. There are a couple of nice pieces of furniture and good artwork in the hosting rooms but everything else is random shite mum has found at local craft fairs, bring n buys, sales. My Christmas presents over the years have included a make-up bag (empty) that mum got for free as part of one of those Boots deals, a pen and notebook my dad got for free at a conference, a keyring mum had found in a drawer. Oh, and because they are so loathe to spend money, they've had to spend enormous amounts doing house repairs which would have cost peanuts if they'd addressed it at the time.

I remember reading a thread here a while back about scarcity mindset and how if you're not saving money for anything specific, you're just hoarding it, and I kind of think that's what my folks are like? But then I just don't understand how their financial emotional literacy has led them to a place where they regularly go to opera in France, eat out of date meat (seriously, I saw it in the fridge last time I was there and refused to touch it), have hundreds of thousands of pounds liquidity, and live in a house where the ceiling nearly fell in because they didn't address a damp problem in time.

Anyway, OP. Your feelings are real - maybe you can donate the china to one of those 'Rage Room' companies and ask for a free session?

Her father easily could. She says 'either side of WW2', so one born in 1945 (say), one born 1939. She is 50 so born in 1974 or 75. Works out perfectly well.

I see this thread is, as I expected, descending into boomer bashing again. My husband, brother, first cousins and I were born towards the end of the Baby Boom and my parents, aunts and uncles were born in the so called Silent Generation. Meaningless marketing twaddle. We are all quite distinct personalities, much as younger generations are, oddly enough. People who happen to be born around the same time are subject to lots of influences. I am not a hoarder and I have never bought a collectable plate or a Franklin Mint coin in my life. I don't know anyone of my age who has. I am sorry that some parents are selfish, waste time and resources on rubbish and fail to support their children. I imagine this has happened in every generation since homo sapiens dropped down from the trees onto the savannah.

I think there are a few times where traumas/hardships from childhood pop up and sting and this is often one of them. I'm sorry @DazedorBemused