Decluttering and feeling guilty about throwing out DC childhood drawings

[SugaryKrush]

Hi I'm in the middle of a declutter and I have loads of grown up DC art and schoolbooks from schooldays . I've taken photos of the best ones but I feel uncomfortable about putting them into the recycling . Aibu ?

DC don't want them

Sorry meant DC have grown up

If DC don't want them, they're just clutter. Recycle them!

I had this convo with my mum - all the things she'd saved and tried to give to me, I didn't want them! I didn't want old drawings, school work or books etc, no use to me in my life and I don't want the clutter.

Thanks . It's drawings right back from their time in infants . I've photographed them . I'm just being sentimental but it kind of feels wrong to recycle them .

But they're useless! Just put them in the recycling.

What do you think will happen if you do? Do you generally have trouble throwing things away?

Yeah I am a bit of a hoarder . It's sentimental stuff I find hard to let go . Now we can store photos on our mobiles I guess I've got to take a deep breath , take a photo and let go .

They’re sentimental, not useless! Nowadays it’s so much easier to take a photo of them and store them on a computer or tablet, than have piles of drawings, like I have!

I understand OP. But the photographs is a great idea.

Have folders on your laptop or phone divided into Artwork, School Reports, Favourite Toys etc and store them all there.

That way you can browse through them when feeling nostalgic but you are dealing with clutter so your adult children won’t have to.

If these were your childhood drawings would you like to keep them as a grown up?
How often would you go through them?

May be think of the drawings as a moment - there was bonding over it chatting about it at the time it was created. That will last forever. They have done their job and you can let them go.

Do one of those photo books with your pics. Feels more real than pics on a phone.

Some of them yes as I was good at art and won some competitions . I suppose in this day and age most young people are living clutter free as they can store so much on their mobile now . I've just got to get with it .

@SugaryKrush taking a photo and throwing away is the right approach. You have the image (photo) and that triggers your happy memories.

I know it’s hard but once you throw away the first batch it will get easier.

A wise woman once said to me - "if they'd made it out of play dough, you wouldn't have kept it." Made it a lot easier to bin the random junk modelling creations they came home from school with! Although I do like the photo book idea!

Another idea is to having photographed them have them made up in to photobook so you can have 3 or 4 to one page or one to a page for nicer ones. That keeps them all together in one book so you can browse through and is something their kids may like looking at when they have any.

I've asked DC if they want them and they declined saying they don't want clutter .

If it makes you feel better, my mum kept SO much sentimental stuff - all her kids school reports, certificates, cards and so on. It was horrible wading through it all when she died. A little bit would have been ok, but so many boxes… it was awful throwing away all her memories, which she had clearly treasured and kept for us. I sobbed and sobbed over it, it took me a whole year to get through it all (I couldn’t keep it and siblings refused to help, I felt I owed it to mum to try and look at it all and decide what to keep).

You are doing your kids a favour by reducing the volume. I am crying now just thinking about the enormous grief it caused me, and my mum would not have wanted that.

I was about to post something very similar to this. It was exhausting and heartbreaking to go through my mum’s belongings. I even found my baby teeth.

I think what you’re doing, taking photos, is great. A lovely way to look through them, when you’re in the mood.

I get it though. I found it extraordinarily difficult to let go of things before the experience with my mum. Like I was throwing the children away somehow! I can’t explain it rationally, but it’s easier now.

Mn is obsessed with 'clutter'. It appears to be the Mn equivalent of being sure to wear clean underwear in case you get knocked down by a bus, only it's morphed into the horror of unexpected visitors happening into a house that isn't 'visitor-ready'.

OP, keep it only if you want to. A friend of mine lives in a tiny Manhattan apartment with her primary school age daughter. Despite all kinds of clever storage solutions, there is no room for anything that isn't strictly necessary (all of both of their clothing has to fit into a small closet, for example and winter/summer clothes are kept in a storage closet in the basement). Her position is that one piece of her child's artwork is displayed in a frame on the wall -- previous works are photographed and put in the recycling bin when a new one arrives home.

My DC aren't grown yet but I keep the best in a little display folder. Perhaps you can do that with any you can't part with. I have a tendency to clutter so I just recycle soon after it's brought home if I know I don't want it long term.

Thank you everyone

It is hard letting go of this sort of thing, because it feels that you are letting go of part of their childhood. But you aren't - the child that they were is still with you in the adult they have become, so it OK to let the memorabilia go 💐

I saved everything when daughter was little to leaving school...she wanted them now shes adult. If not o would have saved my favourites xx

My kids are adults, I still have all of their childhood drawings. But that's just me.