Why You Shouldn’t Save Memorabilia for Your Kids

“A few years ago, my mom dropped off 10 boxes of stuff from my childhood. What do I do with it?”

This is a question I get at almost all my webinars, courses, and events. 

This is very common. Parents—because we love our children in that sense-defying way we must love our children—save stuff from our kids’ childhoods. Eventually, unsure of what to do with it, we pass it off to our grown children, usually to glowing receptions like, “Um, yeah… thanks, Mom…”

Because here’s the deal:

The memories in those boxes don’t belong to the child. They belong to the parent.

Which is why one of my mantras is:

The only person you should save memorabilia for is you.

Easier said than done, as I learned when my own kids were seven years old.

But let’s backtrack five years from that, to when they were just wee toddlers… 

I buy each of my kids one see-through plastic tub from Target to use for memorabilia. I think to myself, “Ah-ha! I’m ahead of the game! I’ll never be that mom who drops off the unwanted tubs ‘o stuff on her grown children’s porches! I’ve soooooo got this!” I resolve to limit each kid to one tub, which they can take with them when they (sniff) eventually move out.

I start putting things in the tubs: their baby bracelets from the hospital, the tee-tiny knitted hats they wore in the NICU, the orange plastic spoon my son Orlando carried 24/7 for two years of his toddlerhood.

Fast forward to my kids at age seven… 

My son Reese kills it at his Cub Scout Pinewood Derby, taking home a trophy, a medal, and several patches (those Boy Scouts are really into the patches). I realize he is a champion of racing a little wooden car proudly made by his father and that perhaps he needs a place to store his growing collection of memorabilia. Enter the tubs. I head up to the attic (where I had been keeping said tubs) and prepare to officially bequeath the plastic memory holders to my children.

However, before bringing the tubs down, I spend a few moments reminiscing about the items already inside. The NICU lovies that still smell like the hospital, the locks of hair from their first haircuts.

I start to feel a little odd about giving these items to my children, and I’m not sure why.

I ask myself…

“If my kids wanted to get rid of these things, how would I feel?”

Immediately, my heart lurches in a million different devastating directions.

There is no way I can allow my kids to part with these memories, because… it slowly dawns on me…

These are my memories, not theirs.

They don’t remember the NICU. They don’t remember their first haircuts or what they wore home from the hospital. But I do.

I need to save these memories for myself, not burden my children with “memory” items of which they have absolutely no recollection.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I hear my own voice at one of my webinars:

The only person you should save memorabilia for is you. 

Touche.

So I remove the baby items and put them in my own memorabilia tub, where my kids and I can both look at them if we want to. I will let my kids forge their own memories, saving whatever memorabilia matters to them.

I give them their tubs, and we talk about what “memorabilia” means, how it is different from toys. I explain that it’s something you keep because it reminds you of a special time. We also talk about what happens if the memorabilia tub gets full.

“We have to take something out,” they respond immediately. (Wow, these kids must have a simplicity coach for a mom!)

So my daughter puts in a postcard her Uncle Jake sent her from Afghanistan. Reese puts in a ceramic lizard he painted in Mexico. Orlando adds a drawing his brother made him last week.

I smile. They’ve got this. They are keeping their memories. And I am keeping mine. And that’s the way it should be.

***

Rose Lounsbury is a keynote speaker, coach, and Amazon bestselling author who helps busy people live happier lives by owning less stuff. After blogging about her personal journey toward a simpler lifestyle, Rose was inspired to leave her classroom teaching job and help others create more meaningful lives through simplicity. Rose spends her days speaking, writing, coaching her clients and online students to the joy of open spaces, and soaking up the moments with her husband and wild triplets in lovely Dayton, Ohio. If you want to know how many towels she owns, you can watch her TEDx Talk, which has over 400,000 views. Rose’s advice has been featured on USAToday.com, and she’s been a guest on Good Day Columbus, WYSO, WVXU, Good Morning Cincinnati, and Living Dayton. You can visit her online at roselounsbury.com or get to know her on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.