I guess I’m just wondering if anyone else is in the same boat, or has gotten past this.I grew up very poor, in a family that was obsessed with having material possessions (probably because we didn’t have much). My parents also saved everything from my childhood, and my kids love seeing my old toys and books and clothes and art work. When I started having kids (16 years ago), I found myself hanging on to every single thing. 4 kids later (youngest is 6), and our house is beyond full. There is clutter everywhere, to the point that I rarely am able to clean - it just feels like shifting piles of stuff around. Our basement is completely full, plus we have things stored at both of our parents’ homes.I think part of the problem is that giving away all of the preschool toys and books feels like saying goodbye permanently to that part of parenting (which, TBH, was my favorite). I want them to be able to save some things that are important to them, but am not sure how to make those choices. My kids have also been lucky enough to have very generous relatives, so they have lots of things, and - of course - they don’t want to part with any of them. About a year ago, I tried to count how many children’s books we had in the house, and stopped counting when I got to 1,000. We have acquired more since then. They have multiple different sets of Snap Circuits, LEGO, puzzles, games (they have 100+ board games, as their dad collects them) - one of their friends once said, “You guys have so many toys, you could open a store!”Money is tight, and what’s holding me back from just gathering things and taking them to Goodwill is the idea that I might be able to get a little bit of money for them. But realistically, I wouldn’t even know where to start, and it just feels like such a burden right now. Any advice? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/34l2I9w
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