should childhood possessions be removed?

What a rotten shame granny23

The poster that said whittle it down into small boxes & keep till they are able to store themselves is the best idea, but don't chuck it!

My attic is FULL! My Son's wah-wah peddles, amps, guitars, some guitars dotted round house, as I think it looks good. My darling GD sometimes has a play on them lol & she's only 2yrs Guitar stands, computers, photos, books & on & on, Of course school & Uni stuff & good toys that I thought could be passed down to GC. Then my youngest D's stuff, I have a ballet bag full of her dance shoes, photo's of the birth of my beloved first GD-all left behind. Both these AC I haven't seen for 5yrs due to estrangement caused by my precious GD's stepdad & his mother My estD has nothing from her childhood!
My niceD tells me to get rid, get a skip and fill it, but I can't! I even have a spider plant that my youngest D 'made' at school when she was 11yrs. keep trying to thin it out, make more plants from the original, try to give some to ND, but she refuses them lol But can't chuck it

All their stuff is actually stopping me moving, as I would move into a small place, being on my own now, and just wouldn't have space for all my stuff & half my furniture, let alone all theirs! Also hate getting into the attic, haven't been up in a year!

Ditto! We could share a crate and ship it all out Persistendonor
(payment at the other end of course)

As each of my three children married and bought their own homes they took anything they wanted. I still have most of their old toys which are now in the Toy Room where their children play. At Christmas I still display their school made decorations (well...some of them). Your children's past is also yours. That time is something you've all shared so keep what makes you happy. Even though that means boxes of Sylvanian Families and Lego coming with you when you downsize as we did.

My son left lots of boxes with me when he moved away.... trouble is he lives in Australia.

I think your husband is being a bit premature here, I think you better tell him gently that the two at Uni may well be back when they finish! It could be years before they own their own homes. We seem to have spent years throwing stuff out but the DC get a chance to look at all the bits and pieces and have taken some and told us to chuck others. The last thing I handed over was all their baby arrival cards which I kept, if they have now thrown them away so be it. Yes keep the Lego much loved by all DGC.

One day they will have responsibility for clearing it all out and storing it. In the meantime it remains in the family home.

Agree with a previous poster that if two of your DC are still in university they still need to consider your home as their hom, even if you have moved. My DD found work locally after graduating so returned to live with us for a few years before finally moving out.

this issue makes me think about how many possessions the younger generation actually own. I left Home at 18 with my clothes in one black bin liner, my teddy under my arm, and some books in a carrier bag.

Twiggy
Normal conduct for some is not normal conduct for others.Myself I have no objection to having items belonging to my children left at my home.
Should I not have the space to keep them it would be 'come and fetch your belongings or I will have to dispose of them?.' Take it from there.

Like you I have 2 sons and a daughter. Once they were all settled in their own homes I asked them what they wanted to take with them and what they wanted me to save, bearing in mind that I had moved a couple of times so needed to be minimalistic. I now have one pretty box full of my “treasures” and my memories of their childhood, I even took photos of bits that had to go, but I still wanted the memory. Men are always more brutal than women when it comes to having clear outs !

When my children got their permanent homes then the good toys stored, Lego, Fisher Price, Brittain's, Hornby came down from the loft and were divided up plus a few mementos they wanted to have. Their own children play with the toys. I have a box of mementos and a few favourite soft toys in the cupboard at the top of the wardrobe.

If you have crates of lego in the attic keep it for goodness sake. My grandchildren love playing with their father's lego and in a way, it stirs their imagination more than the modern stuff which is all laid out for them. They make their own lego people with plasticine and the old road layout for his cars is now in the spare room covered in lego houses and trucks. They always make a beeline for it.

My grandchildren LOVE their parents old LEGO. It will last for many generations!

I moved to a boat...no space anymore. My eldest helped me box her's and her sibling's stuff up. They have their own stuff now as they have the room and I don't. I don't think there is any right or wrong way to deal with children's things. It is all to do with who has the space.

Mine are in their 30's. Nothing of DS except photos of course. Duvet cover kept as DD says she will want it when she has kids. Two boxes under the settee with all their teenage cards/photos/school records etc all ready to go once twin DDs have their own family as I believe that then, everything in the boxes really will have the necessary nostalgia factor. I have all my mums bits now and derive comfort from having so much of 'her' still with me

A friend of mine said his mother contacted him when she was arranging to move house and told him if he wanted to keep anything of his that was still at her house, he needed to come and get it by a certain date. Sounds reasonable.

Can't believe your MIL Granny23! What a shame for your husband. Sometimes it's not so much about the storage but as already said, the rummage through for overseas children as each time they return their lives have moved on so they see their possessions differently and either definitely do or don't want it. The 18 year old will never think they will want My Little Pony for their own children but the 28 year old will

I not only have some of my sons' stuff (mostly the younger one) in the loft and various cupboards I also have quite a lot of my mum's which I couldn't part with - her school books, 21st cards from 1941 and a full set of encyclopaedias from when she was a child which are very battered but sentimental as I remember pouring over the pictures when I was a child. As the youngest now lives on the other side of the world I'm pretty sure he won't be taking his army memorabilia or school books back when he's here next month but as he's bringing his own two small boys to his family home for the first time I'm pretty sure he'll want to rummage through anything he might find for them to look at.

I would keep it and get them to go through it and decide what they want to keep - before you move. The one with the house can take their things but I don't think the ones at uni could do that so I would keep it till they have a house. Our DC toys and books are now being recycled as DGC grow into them eg. doll's pram, dollies, marbles, Roald Dahl books, duplo. I love it!

As each one moved to their long-term home they removed the 'stuff' they'd left behind or decided they didn't want kept. DS and wife are now looking to move from their flat to a house so the very last box will go then. GC s have 'stuff' here and I can't provide storage for 2 generations (plus myself)!!

My MIL (who was a very difficult woman) emptied my DH's bedroom and binned everything while we were away on honeymoon - his records, books, Scouting stuff, huge Meccano set, every day clothes and as we discovered later, his full set of Eagle Comics from the first edition - now worth a small fortune. DH started married life with one set of work wear and his new 'honeymoon in Italy', sandles, shorts and light tops.

When we had our 2 DDs there was nothing from their father's childhood to pass on to them or show them. MIL remarked that she 'just knew' we would have girls and they would not want old 'boys' stuff.

Re-reading the OP, two of the DC are in university so it is still their home, surely, even if you move to another one?

So yes, I would keep it for the time being;', they could come home and help you sort through and pack up all their things into manageable boxes to transport to the next home.

We got rid of most of it when we moved house. We also downsized a lot of our own stuff. We still have 'stuff' but enough attic space to let it fester until we pop our clogs and they have no alternative but to clear it along with our rubbish we never got round to binning. Perfect solution.

DS2 has left lots of his stuff with us. Having been without it for so long he is now telling us to get rid of it all. However I just can't bear to as it includes all the football cups and trophies he won as a child .Sentimental value not for him but for me.

Yes, it is normal but there does come a time when you have to put your foot down and say - 'take it all away please'!

Then you think 'I wish I'd kept that for the DGC'.