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.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I’m aware from other threads that you aren’t anti Labour; but that doesn’t stop people on the left from coming out with the same cultural myths about university education that the right wing press were so successful for years in putting about (my boomer parents are left wing and do it all the time too, completely forgetting all the polytechnics and all of postwar education policy including all the early 90s reforms by Clarke and Major).

You see the “Blair wanted fifty percent of kids to go to university” myth absolutely everywhere despite the fact that literally NOTHING about that is true.

(I myself always voted Labour until the last election when I felt I could not vote for any party, even Labour.)

I hope people read this post and the various responses underneath. It's a curse having to clear through other people's dross when they pass away / go into a home. I can honestly say I've probably spent a total of six months of my life engaged in activities relating to clearing houses belonging to my grandmother and then father. Also a friend who moved countries and gave me a load of really useful (not!) stuff she didn't want to throw away. Fortunately Dad downsized significantly and has been forced to sell various antiques he's keen for us to have that we don't like at all. Worst though are all the papers and small bits of ceramics, containers, full collections of magazines (think 7 years worth of farmers weekly). GM was a hoarder - multiple skips and visits to the tip.

Yes, I'm no lover of Blair but you'd think people would understand that higher education and university are not synonymous!

Yes I had 3 jobs - few mornings a week serving breakfasts in a hotel, a bar job and 2 nights a week behind the bar in a nightclub. I didn’t get a grant as my mum earned too much but I didn’t get a penny! So I took the loan and had to earn the extra at £3 an hour.

My elderly dad is alive and well living in an horribly cluttered but large house. He has eased up on hoarding since we did a little clear out a few years back after a hospital stint. This was necessary to move a bed downstairs temporarily and the only way we were allowed access. We found spice jars 14 years out of date, 3 bags of gift bags all damp and showing shop brands 20 years closed, 2 refuse sacks of yoghurt cartons, to name but a few items in 1 room. We have tried and tried to get him to declutter but he refuses all help. We now know when he dies we have a massive job ahead of us and as the only one local it will fall to me.

I've somehow made peace with it but the way he lives has made me so angry over the years. The one item that saddens me the most is the baby stackable bricks that light up when all in place, they are still in the box as he was afraid DS would break them. 7 grandchildren later and the box is still on the shelf over the TV never opened. It's the one room we have access to, i can only imagine what lurks in the other rooms. Sadly it's a common situation.

Thanks. Yes, that’s a consideration…but I’ve no real option if no one wants to take on being executor. (The weird thing is that it’s been suggested that my cousins’ kids could be my POA, but they’re firm about not wanting the responsibility of being executor.)

There might be the option of someone from my late DH’s family being prepared to do it. It’s a long story…DH only found his birth family late on in life.

Omg solicitor as executor.... noooo!! We had this! We'll never do it to our children!

I think some posters are being nitpicky
about generational cut-offs. Someone born in 1939 may technically belong to the silent generation, but their upbringing and life experiences will be more similar to those of someone born in 1945 than 1920.
I’m gen x (born 1978) but have far more in common with your average millennial than a fellow gen x-er born in 1965.

But back on topic… As previous posters have mentioned, the combination of the “never throw anything out”/“keep for best” mentality they inherited from their parents, combined with the consumerism of the 80s onwards has led to this situation for so many of the war-baby/post-war generation. My MIL’s large house is bursting at the seams 😱😱😱
It’s a reflection of changing values (that Agatha Christie anecdote is a fascinating illustration) rather than a moral failing (although I understand OP’s family-specific grievance) and I’m sure our children will have plenty to say about our choices in 30-40 years time.

The 50% target was a Major govt target for participation in any kind of tertiary education, for which even a higher level workplace NVQ or a couple of weeks’ beauty course at a further ed college qualified! Blair and Brown kept it because it seemed like a good thing, what with the general focus of the 90s on education, skills and “international competitiveness” (remember that? So retro!)

Actually the boomer cohort had a lot of free education - the OU was originally even pretty much free or for peanuts, as was a lot of adult ed. Educating Rita wouldn’t ever happen now, unless Rita had nearly ten k a year going spare for fees.

Gosh, sounds complicated! To be honest they don't sound very nice anyway, so anything that eats into their inheritance is a bonus as far as I'm concerned 🤣
I just know some people worry about passing on as much money as they can, and have seen first hand how solicitors drag it out for their own financial gain!x

What was the problem? The cost?

I’ve been exec three times, had to deal with emptying two houses and helped with emptying another relative’s…but my cousins have told me not to make their kids my exec - they told me to use a solicitor.

One of my cousins advised me to cash in my premium bonds, to avoid hassle when I depart this mortal coil, but I’m ignoring that advice.

Well, I managed to frantically empty the 'tip' car just as they were closing due to high winds. I'm already struggling to remember exactly what was there but it was a full hatchback including passenger seat. A million decisions - the Tesco carrier bags from all eras, the suitcases, the school books, the magazines, the cushions, the other cushions, a brand new kitchen tap, a boxed scalloped toilet seat for a really tiny pan.

I can absolutely put everyone's mind at rest that my parents did not suffer at all during their lives. My dad was four at the end of the war, last year to do National service, which he adored. my mum briefly experienced chocolate rationing.
They married (it was a fancy do) and immediately bought a brand new house, three bed ,in the south east but didn't have a TV for the first two years.
I am pleased that they genuinely enjoyed their lives despite talking the talk of four day weeks and interest rates. They worked hard, sometimes. And they enjoyed their work social clubs and amazing other benefits.

I am utterly bored of their life stories and their perceived hard ships, I've heard them so many times. In return they remember very little of my life, my plans, my 20s, buying our first house, they just never took any notice.

And yet here I am trying to work out whether the dinner service is smash, sell or charity. If selling the Game of Life which was my main present the year my brother got a computer is worth the headspace or £20.

It's been a full on day and the bright spots have been you lot, sharing in misery, reflection on different viewpoints and appreciating that not all of us get the mighty privilege of looting Tutankhamuns tomb and unwrapping the limited edition plates that have lain undisturbed since they were delivered 40 years ago.

Thank you everyone, you are amazing.

Depends on parents' ages when she was born. If they were early 20s then probably early boomers but if they were in their 30s they could easily be pre war.

Re your comment on boomers getting "free" education and university. Most of them left school at 15 (or even 14 for the older boomers) and never got a sniff of a chance for higher education. For <10% who went to higher ed (universities and polys or higher technical colleges) the fees were paid but the grant was heavily means tested. The women were routinely discriminated against in access to education, jobs and pensions and elderly single women is one of the poorest demographics.

Every child born and growing up during the way grew up in families suffering the physical and mental trauma of war, many lost members of the family and children were seperated from their families sometimes for years. Bugger all mental health care - it largely didn't exist. Education was disrupted for about a decade as younger able bodied teachers were called up or volunteered (both men and women) and evacuees and schools were moved around and paper restrictions went on both during the war and for some time afterward. Housing was truly shocking, social safety nets limited to non existent and the NHS didn't really get going until the late 50s (and then was small scale by comparison with now). By comparison the disruption to education from covid was small beer,

The 70s was an era of recession, inflation and job losses. The 1980s were great for some but introduce generational unemployment and poverty for others.

If you apply the same calculations to millennials as are used to generate the "greedy rich boomers" headlines then lo and behold - millennials are set up to be the richest generation in history.

The reality is that every generation has some who do well and others who do badly. Instead of sweeping generalisations about generations it makes far more sense to identify those in need of help in every generation as poverty and privilege are both intergenerational.

Oh and "golden child" is also an intergenerational phenomenon

Did they send your brother away and keep you at home? How does he feel about that?

Do something nice for you tonight Op - bubble bath, glass of wine etc.
Don’t underestimate how mentally draining it is.
Personally I’d throw most of it it’s not worth the hassle.

Re your comment on boomers getting "free" education and university. Most of them left school at 15 (or even 14 for the older boomers) and never got a sniff of a chance for higher education. For <10% who went to higher ed (universities and polys or higher technical colleges) the fees were paid but the grant was heavily means tested. The women were routinely discriminated against in access to education, jobs and pensions and elderly single women is one of the poorest demographics.

I can assure you that for the postwar generations this really isn’t true. A much larger proportion of the cohort had free tertiary education than this (for example: how do you think all the schoolteachers of the postwar period were trained? Teacher training college was further ed, with grants. Nursing similarly so.) A large proportion of jobs did not require a degree, but, crucially, they were not unskilled, and training was subsidised or free in further ed and by employers themselves.

Every child born and growing up during the way grew up in families suffering the physical and mental trauma of war, many lost members of the family and children were seperated from their families sometimes for years. Bugger all mental health care - it largely didn't exist. Education was disrupted for about a decade as younger able bodied teachers were called up or volunteered (both men and women) and evacuees and schools were moved around and paper restrictions went on both during the war and for some time afterward. Housing was truly shocking, social safety nets limited to non existent and the NHS didn't really get going until the late 50s (and then was small scale by comparison with now).

How do you square this with the historically very generous levels of social support and social housing in the postwar period, sold off and removed in the 80s onwards and not available today? You have a very one-track vision of the past. Some things are better, but by and large, employment security, housing availability and so on are much less good. The average mean wage remains in real terms the same in some sectors as in the 1970s, but buys much less - especially as now there are usually two adults working in every household compared to one. Houses cost up to twenty times the average salary in many parts of the country, compared to two or 2.5 times during the 60s-early 80s.

I found my late in-laws ahem Polaroid collection from the 70s 😳. Ah well, they were young and in love at the time 😂.

MIL has loads of stuff, she has stuff from when her Mother died. She also has a penchant for clipping newspapers and articles and keeping letters. I know DH will want to look through everything a little too thoroughly. He is also quite sentimental, I have said many a time I don’t want anything from your Mothers house. He seems to think some stuff will be worth selling, it really won’t be. She is an orderly hoarder. My parents were very reasonable and did not hoard stuff, they were both silent generation and my Father was a refugee. I did find £400 in a jacket pocket of my Fathers, check the pockets!

We have got rid of a lot of stuff since DH retired a couple of months ago. Just the books to go now. I have really enjoyed it if truth be told. persuading DH has been hard. We are still in our fifties, DS is still at home, he has said he isn’t keeping anything of ours. He has agreed to keep DH almost 200 year old family bible with the names of all children born in it, it’s a massive lectern size one.

Sorry it’s raised difficult emotions for you op, once it’s done I hope you can have some time relaxing doing something that gives you some pleasure.

Speaking of executors, DP is the soft touch of their family and has been told by several childless older relatives that DP will be executor and expected to clear the house BUT (depending on which relative) the house has no equity in it because they've done equity release OR the estate is to be split between other parties (not DP). So DP gets the dross of being executor and housemaid but doesn't actually get left anything of value. So having used DP as an emotional crutch for years they will continue to sap time and energy and give nothing back even after they're dead.

I feel your pain OP. My DF died last year and the task is just overwhelming.

The highlights I've uncovered so far include things like two bottles of talcum powder with pre-decimalisation price tags, and a further three, same brand, with post-decimalisation tags... all unopened. Ten unopened packs of carbon paper, purchased in 1998 (the receipt is still there) to go with the two mechanical typewriters in the cupboard... for a guy who had been using computers for a good five years prior to that. A jar of cassoulet with a price tag in French francs. Unopened knee-length socks bought in the Eighties. 38 blank VHS cassettes (no player...). 31 (I am not kidding) Singapore Airlines toiletries sets of toothbrush/razor etc, plus another dozen or so Emirates ones. All unopened.

While he was buying/hoarding stuff like this over the decades we were sent to boarding school with stamps that had been soaked off envelopes to be re-used for our weekly letters home. If there was some of the franking ink visible around the edge we had instructions to smear/scuff the envelope to disguise it.

To make things worse, he lived in a place with no bulk waste system accessible by the public. You can't just rent a skip, and the tips are not accessible to the public. The only option apart from flytipping is the roadside skips. I've easily done 100 skip runs in a 75 series Landcruiser and have barely made a dent in it.

And then there's my sibling. Starts by stating clear intention of leaving all the actual work to me - just wants to know how much money they're getting and when. Clearly states they want no claim on any of the stuff - it's mine to deal with. But sibling still wants to use DF's house for free holidays until it's sold.

Sibling won't do any of the proper declutterring but: 12-place cutlery canteen that might be worth something to a charity shop, even if not much as a second hand sale.... sibling takes the spoons, leaves the rest. Set of eight espresso cups and saucers... sibling takes six cups on one visit, then the remaining two cups on the next. So there's eight saucers and me, who has to go and buy more cups just to have a fucking cup of coffee while I'm there for weeks at a time doing all the bloody work. I like to listen to music and have many of the same tastes as DF. Sibling leaves the CD player but throws out every single CD.

Sometimes I just want to scream.

@LokiDoki75 Oh crikey that must have been bloody traumatising.

It’s about op being treated differently to her brother.

Yup, had to deal with the S&M drawers. The whip got taken off me at airport security on the way home, everything else went in the bin.

My father's cross-dressing lingerie went to my best friend's Russian wife; they're the same size.

Ff

Luckily they were quite tame and I realised pretty quickly what they were so blushes were (mostly) spared. Good job I found them and not DH because I think he would’ve had an attack of the vapours 😂.