Big families, hand-me-downs, overly sentimental Mother, etc.

[Moxie]

I really had no idea how to title this post. I'm probably just rambling.

 

During our recent move, I became aware of the fact that I have save 20 Rubbermaid boxes full of kids clothes. In the old house, it was all in the attic so I didn't have to think about it too much. In this house, I decided to deal with it rather than hide it so the boxes are all stacked in the garage, mocking me.

 

I know I need to go through them. While we might have another child some day, we probably won't have 12 more! There are just way too many clothes!

 

Here's my problem. I'm overly sentimental. I look at the cute little boy sweaters and the sweet onesies and I picture my kids wearing it and I want to keep it forever! Silly, I know.

 

If you have a big family and pass clothes down but are closing in on the finish line, how do you decide how much to keep? I feel really selfish keeping too much.

 

How do you keep sentimental items? I know I want to keep their "coming home" outfits and maybe a few others? Anybody have any good guidelines so they don't all become special?

 

Any suggestions for keeping baby blankets?? Each of my kids received a homemade blanket from my Mom, MIL, and my Grandmother. How should I label and store these?? If I die, I want them to know who made it for them so they need labeled in some way, right??

 

If anyone knows of a great way to organize hand-me-downs, I'm all ears!

 

I promised DH that I'd go through the boxes by Christmas so I need to get moving on it. The poor man wants to park in the garage.

[Cera]

I went through my kids things and saved one rubbermaid bin for each with clothes, blankets, etc that I wanted them to have.  I tossed a note in the box with the stories behind the items (first outfit, blanket hand knit by grandma, etc).  I took the remainder and cut some of my favorites up to make quilts for each of the kids then gave the rest away to friends and family (seeing other little kids wear the items is better than them rotting in a box).

 

(and I paid to have the quilts made, I'm not that crafty.)

 

[Twigs]

… (seeing other little kids wear the items is better than them rotting in a box). …

:iagree:  :iagree:  :iagree:

[prairiewindmomma]

We do the one tub per kid for sentimental stuff.

 

As far as the clothes go, keep one tub per gender of baby stuff, and then keep winter coats, snow pants, and snow boots. Also keep sunday/holiday clothes. Beyond that, if you have space, keep stuff you know you can immediately hand down. Shirts between your boys and everything between your younger girls comes to mind.

 

Keep nothing stained, holy, or uncomfortable.

[scholastica]

Well, some clothes become obviously dated, so those can go. For everything else, I try to remember that I have lots of photos of my kids in these outfits.  I have kept a few sentimental things. But just a few.  I came to understand that there were people in the world who could use these clothes right now. Textiles, unless preserved, rot, so even if I do keep them, they may not be very useful.  To me, that means I'm just letting something rot that someone else in the world needs, and that is poor stewardship, IMO.  I feel that I have gotten my money's worth, so I pass them along.  If it makes you feel better, pass them along to another large family that may be in need, (maybe through Freecycle) rather than just dumping it at Goodwill.

 

scholastica

 

Edited for wording.

[Upward Journey]

I am just like you, overly sentimental because every time I see the outfit I remember the little ones wearing them :) First I went through an threw away the stuff that really I couldn't see me or anyone else using again ;) then I started giving things away. "Oh, you have a 4yo girl and she likes wearing dresses? I have something to give you." If it was something that I had been more attached to, I tried to give it to a child/family that was important to me, somehow that made it easier. I also gave many, many things to an indigent church in our town, and some to a pregant teen. I also asked my dil to take anything she might like. I still have some things, but mostly they're expensive dresses or sweaters, waiting for grandchildren that fit into them :)

[fairfarmhand]

I pass most of my stuff on to others. There's a lady at church with a girl and 2 boys younger than my dd and ds. Some Sundays the three of them come to church completely decked out in clothes that came from my house. I love it!

 

I have a tub for each child and a note pinned to special handmade items. It is easier as they get bigger. You figure out it's just stuff and their clothes take up more space so you can't keep as much.

[StephanieZ]

So long as I think I might have use for it, I save hand me downs in cardboard file boxes. I label it with age/gender, with as narrow a range as feasible. 

 

When I box things up, I first throw out anything that is damaged, obviously worn, or stained. I then donate anything that I just didn't like for any reason or anything that I have in excessive quantity. The remainder I box and store. I tend to keep a partially-full box in each child's clothes closet so I can simply toss out-grown items in there when they come out of the laundry.

 

Beyond that, I'd keep the outgrown things if you may be having more kids. I can't imagine spending all that money over and over. Once we knew we were done, I started donating. I have great sentimental attachment, too, but I've found it a lot easier to give things away to people I know than to a faceless charity. Now that I've gotten over it a bit, now I can more easily donate to charity anything I can't find good homes for. 

 

This reminds me . . . I do need to go deal with the remaining boxes in the basement, lol . . . 

 

 

 

 

[Mama Geek]

I have an only and she is now almost 3 1/2.  We were given so much stuff that for the first 2 years we really didn't have to buy anything.  And so much of it was hand me downs from family.  I kind of feel like people were so generous to us that it is much easier for me to pass on things as dd out grows them.  At the end of dh's last contract job we found someone who had lost everything due to flooding from a storm 8 months earlier.  We gave them all the toys and clothes that dd had outgrown and that we didn't want to travel back home with.  One of the other contract jobs as we were leaving we gave several things to someone that was pregnant and mentally handicapped.  I would do the same thing in a heart beat in the future

[HS Mom in NC]

I only have 3 kids.  The older two are 22 months apart and they are 7 and 9 years older than the youngest. So I can only address some of your post.

 

1. Severely limit sentimental object space. 

I have a cedar chest in which I keep sentimental clothes, baby/young child sentimental objects.  Once that is full, if I want to put something else in it, I have to take something else out.  That way, over the years, I have to say to myself, "Is this worth keeping more than what's already in there?  Is there something in there not as important as this?"

 

2.  What does a person really need?

No one needs anything other than a set of clothing that keeps out the weather at each season,  enough calories to be healthy, clean water, and shelter that keeps out the elements.  Nothing else is necessary.  Most of humanity doesn't  have a pile of stuff to remember the past-they have memories.  Most of humanity doesn't have a bunch of stuff to hand down because they only have what is essential and use it until it wears out.  They still love their kids.  They still have memories of when their kids were little.

 

3. Hanging on isn't usually necessary.

 

Assuming there isn't some severe financial hardship in your life, you could probably manage to afford what any future child(ren) would need when it comes to clothes.  If you kept absolutely nothing from the older kids your future children will probably not be naked and cold.  People will probably give you clothing gifts at a baby shower or holidays when they're still tiny. So, there's no need for most people to keep anything for sake of a maybe.

 

4. Keep what gives you the best investment on your return.

 

If you choose to keep clothing and hand it down, then keep what is most expensive to replace. You are paying in time, energy, and space to keep things.  Make it worth your while by being able to keep more income when it's time to clothes shop for your kids because you don't need to replace the more expensive items.

 

5. It is what it is.

 

Maybe what's going on (and I don't know, I'm just throwing out all sorts of possibilities) is that your house can't handle the stuff, so it needs to go.  That's just the reality of the situation.  You way want to keep it, but you can't.  Maybe it's time to act contrary to your emotions because that's what's necessary at this time and place in your life.  You can do things that are emotionally uncomfortable and survive and even thrive afterward.  What's the worst possible thing that could happen? Whatever that is, you can probably manage to live a full, meaningful life in spite of it.

 

 

6. Other ways to remember.

If you just can't bring yourself to get rid of the cloth object because it's what triggers your memory, then why not take digital photo of each out fit, upload it to whatever website prints memory book, add captions about what your remember about which kid in that out fit, and have the memory book company send you a lovely book that fits so neatly on a shelf.  You, your spouse and your kids can read it for fun whenever the mood strikes you.  That way you're sharing memories without a bunch of stuff to sort through, organize, take up space, etc.

 

7. Learn to live seasonally.

 

This may or may not be applicable to your situation.  In general, we in America are bad at living seasonally.  We think we should be in the same stage of life all the time trying to keep things the same.  Reality is otherwise.  I understand what it is to stop having children before you want to stop having children.  Life isn't fair and it's OK to grieve the closing of one chapter in your life so you can move onto the next chapter.   If you're having a hard time moving from "maybe we'll have more kids" to "we're not having anymore kids" you may be prone to want to avoid the grief that goes with that by distracting yourself with baby/toddler memories with the clothes.  It's OK to be sad.  You may need to be sad for a while.

 

Once you've grieved the end of the last chapter, then get excited about the next chapter of your life.  There are things you can do when you don't have wee ones that you couldn't do when you did have wee ones. 

 

 

-You can use pens recommended for writing permanently on quilts and, I assume, blankets with whatever information you want.  It would not be the end of the world however,  if your child didn't remember which grandmother made it.

 

-Giving your extras to worthy charities may help.  There are people who truly cannot afford the things you have but don't need anymore.  It's hard to think of a good reason to keep things from those people.

 

 

[mom2bee]

Aw, thats not silly. Now that you recognize the problem, I say tackle it little by little in a head on manner. I say donate everything to a church/mosque/synagogue that you decide not to keep. Someone will get use out of them and just because something is 'dated' doesn't mean it wont or can't be worn. I personally loved a lot of the  clothes from the early 90s and hate a lot of the modern 2000+ fashions. Most modern fashions just look horrible in my opinion!

 

There is a lot of good advice in this thread, hope you find something that works for you.

 

[Pod's mum]

I've been lucky enough to have our house-sitters help me go through our house and de-stuff it. I haven't kept tooo many children's clothes due to the rotating 'cousins boxes'. However I did hold a few specials back and some I'd made for dd the elder that now fit dd the younger.

What suprised me was that this dd had no interest in keeping any specials. So I added them to the donations. The one garment that gave me grief, I was able to retrieve as that bag hadn't yet gone.

However finding out that she does not suffer from stuff-attachment like her mother and older sister helps me let go.

Will your children feel the same attachment to these quilts and garments as you, or will they be 'stuff that's important to mum that I need to keep'?

 

What did give me pause was that I've done almost no sewing for this dd.

So I've retrieved my patterns and we'll make her some specials of her own.

(Which she will happily hand on, which is fine.)

[*Lulu*]

I get it. I'm the mom who cried everytime she held a pair of shoes her toddler had outgrown.

 

The issue with the boys' clothing mostly sorted itself out- by the time both boys were done, very little had survived! :P

 

Sister's stuff was so much harder to consolidate and part with. I think I had to mourn the fact I would never have another daughter all over again when I finally went through the boxes of clothes I had saved after she outgrew them.

 

In phase one of the downsize I had a tub per child. In phase two, (a few years later), I settled on one Rubbermaid tub for all the clothing/blankets I wanted to save.

[alisoncooks]

I pass most of my stuff on to others. There's a lady at church with a girl and 2 boys younger than my dd and ds. Some Sundays the three of them come to church completely decked out in clothes that came from my house. I love it!

 

We have a similar situation.  We hand all our out-grown clothing down to one family... and then they have someone they hand clothes to when they're finished -- so I get to see my kids clothes "reincarnated" twice!  It's so sweet!

[sarahbobeara]

One thing to remember as you're considering saving favorite outfits is that materials age.  Stains often show up after several years, elastic weakens (and is replaceable I suppose), and fabrics break down.  The items you pack away for grandbabies might not be wearable after possibly 20 years in a box.  My parents saved a few things from when I was a baby, one was a pink frilly dress with elastic and lace.  They presented it to me when my oldest was born but by then the elastic was shot, stains had appeared, and the lace was yellow.  I am sentimental but I really didn't know what I was supposed to do with it.  I accepted it, thanked them and added it to the handmade quilts and blankets the kids received over the years.  These all go in a trunk that we use as a footstool in the TV room, I wish I had a better way to store them.

 

My husband is military and we move every few years, I did not want to have to deal with where to store boxes and boxes and boxes of baby clothes in each new house.  So, I passed them all out to friends, my favorites went to my closer friends.  The keepsake stuff for each child's birth fits in a photo box (pregnancy journal, cards from family, hat they got at the hospital, a few other things), add in their baby book and that's their first few years. 

 

I've learned from watching my parents that memories aren't in the items and even if were to explain to someone the feelings I had when so-and-so wore this and how he/she looked while wearing it, it won't fully express the pride and love I had for that child at that moment.

 

The stuff in the bins is just stuff.  Worldly stuff that weighs me down. 

[OrganicAnn]

I have two dresses that I wore as a child.    I realized that I felt nothing for them.    I think that if I had a picture of myself in the dresses, then I might think more of them.   So I decided that I was only going to keep outfits for sentimental reasons that were in pictures.   This helped me get rid of lots of other clothes.   

 

So I would make 3 piles   1) most likely to use with a new kid  2) sentimental, but must also have a picture of kid wearing it and 3) give away/sell.

 

 

[Mommyof4ks]

I kept their special outfits, and took pictures of the rest before donating them. Once you get started it will get easier!

[justasque]

Go easy on yourself and your feelings.  If you're not ready to get rid of everything, it's ok to go through a box and just identify the stuff you *know* you don't want to keep.  Give that stuff away (Goodwill, friends, give-away table at homeschool group or church).  

Then take another look at what's left; chances are you can do another round.  This makes it a little easier - you don't have to give up the stuff that's important or special, but you can reduce the volume considerably by removing what's clearly not worth keeping.  As you go, it will get easier to give things up.  With each round, you'll start to appreciate the free feeling from giving up stuff, which will give you the energy/attitude to let more go.  

Once you've reduced it to a reasonable level, you can take steps to carefully put aside the few things you want to keep, and store them carefully.

 

[happypamama]

I don't know. I'm about there myself; my littlest baby is just outgrowing the newborn clothes, which are mostly neutral, so all five have worn them. I should get rid of a lot, and I'm just not ready to do it. What I do find easier to separate out are the bigger kid clothes -- it's unlikely that we'll have another daughter, and even if we do, we'd be talking about at least 13 years' difference between DD and the new girl, so I'm finding it easier to get rid of her bigger kid clothes. It helps that some stuff gets passed down to a younger cousin; that cousin is the second of two girls, so she gets hand-me-downs from her big sister, but she seems to love getting stuff from DD (which makes sense -- it's new, and big sister hasn't worn it; big sister is tall and is DD's size, which is why DD doesn't hand down to her anymore). So we get to see pics of cousin wearing stuff that was DD's, and that makes us smile. But the baby girl clothes -- well, I'm not quite ready to decide for sure that they won't be worn again. My sister is getting married soon, though, so if she has a girl in a couple of years, it will probably bring me a lot of joy to give some of our favorite outfits (actually, some of them *she* bought for our DD) to her. OP, perhaps there is a close friend or relative who would appreciate the clothes, and then you could see them being enjoyed?

[MomtoCandJ]

Right now Cali has a hat box that holds her baby book and other sentiment things (like birthday cards), I am going to get a plastic file box though for her school papers (hand prints, report cards and the like). I have another hat box in my closet for Juli when she arrives.

Cali's handmade blankets are folded up on the shelf in her closet. I will just add Juli's when she gets them. Eventually I want to make each of the girls a hope chest to put those blankets in.