Ok all you wonderful blogging ladies out there. Summer excluded. Nothing personal dear. I need your help.
Do any of you see the need to keep baby clothes from your kids? Seriously. This has been a long standing disagreement with Summer and I. She has several boxes (yes SEVERAL) of clothes from both boys that she refuses to give away or throw out. WHY?! I see no need for this. It is a waste of valuble space. Our boys will never wear them again. When they have kids of their own they will be unusable anyways due to being eaten by moths, or the simple fact that they won't be the "in thing" for kids to wear in the future. They just sit in the boxes not being looked at or anything.
Do all women do this? Is there something in my male brain that just is not getting the point here? Wouldn't it be better to donate them to the Goodwill or something? Maybe a charity that helps single teen moms. I don't know. Anything is better than what we are doing now.
Just to be fair I also realize that I have junk of my own that I need to get rid of to save space myself. I am in the process of doing just that.
If it is a woman thing that all women do I will drop the issue.
11 comments:
I can see saving a favorite or particularly cute outfit, but boxes and boxes?? Sounds like something I'd do. :P
I'm a big believer in passing things down to others who need them. I have saved very little of N's, maybe one or two of my favorite outfits from his baby days. Keeping boxes of baby clothes ain't a woman thing. It's a pack rat thing. Or it's a can't-we-have-one-more-so-I-better-save-these thing.
Oh jesus H bald headed Christ, I'm so with you on this on CH.
I've heard it said that if you don't use it in three years that means you don't need it. But I would compromise, keep a few of your favorite items (we all have those) and then donate the rest to those that need them, or family, or disaster relief or something that makes you feel good. That's what we did.
The alternative here is that Summer is trying to tell you something, maybe the baby having days are not over after all?
That's my 2 cents, even though I am not a woman.
Coming from the World's Worst Packrat (in that I am NOT one), I would encourage her to pick one or two sentimental favorites, and send the rest to a second hand thrift store or put in a garage sale. The guy from Clean Sweep has it all right... he says if you're keeping something because it means something to you, then you should be displaying it and honoring it. If it's in a box in the garage, it's obviously not serving a purpose anymore.
I am also an unsentimental cold hearted snake with no kids, so take that for what it's worth. :P
I can relate to SR wanting to keep them.
Why don't you want to keep them? There is the obvious sentimental value and they can be put to use. One long standing tradition in my familly is to take any of the baby's clothes or blankets left over have make them in to a quilt or something along those lines for the child to use when they have thier own children. My baby quilt was made of my mothers old onesies and PJ's as was my sisters. My mothers was made from baby clothes of her mother.
It's a cute idea to mention to SR, because that way she gets to keep the baby stuff and start a new family tradition. And it's the kind of thing you can always add to. I've asked my mother for my baby things so i can add them to my baby quilt for my kids if and when they I have them.
Just a thought.
Then again donating is always a good idea if no one is attached to the tiems.
I get it. Totally. It's about thinking "some day my baby will have a baby".. and you save special things. You pass them down.
I have 1 child and about 12 boxes of things I'm saving for her. Someday it will mean something to her that I saved them for her own baby.
Maybe a compromise would be keeping a few special items for your children's children. That way they have something from their parents' childhoods, but you aren't burdened with tons of stuff in the meantime.
My parents were (are) packrats, too. They kept clothes, trophies, stuffed animals, report cards, etc. When I moved out, they gave it to me...and I threw it all away. I still have no regrets about it. At 31, I don't need a trophy to prove I bowled a 100 when I was 10.
I say toss it!
We've always swapped baby stuff among our group of friends. We've all had children at different times, and maternity clothes and baby clothes just kind of got passed back and forth.
We still had boxes of baby clothes, and we are just now starting to drop most of them off at Goodwill and Salvation Army. We kept them for a few years, but I think we've decided we won't be having any more kids.
Keep a few, give the rest away.
I am a "chucker" by nature, I find getting rid of things very cathartic and liberating and hardly keep anything, but I find I can't bring myself to throw the baby clothes away...
Actually, mostly I just pick a few things in each size that have particularly strong memories attached and then throw or give away the rest. But I can really understand how SR might not be willing to give ANY away...
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