Sunday, April 15, 2012

Cutting the cord with adult children


When I was 26 years old, I moved out of my parent’s house. I took with me, my cloths and personal items. My mother did "give" me the heaviest sleeper sofa in the world simply because she did not want it anymore and was glad to get rid of it. She also offered me mismatched dishes, old pots and pans, and thread bear sheets and towels. As sad as I think she was to see me leave home, she was very happy to get rid of her junk to what she thought a good cause.

 I meet a lot of people in my business that have just the opposite way of looking at this situation.  I was attending my local Lions Club meeting last week and we were planning our bi annual garage sale to support the Lions charities. For obvious reasons, I was the chair person for the event. As members we don’t advertise our business and since most of our membership is retired anyway it does not really matter.  With that said I am still very vocal about what I do and how I feel about clutter and keeping unnecessary and unwanted items.

 As were where discussing the event, one of our members who is retired mentioned that he needed to have his own garage sale but did not know where to start. He has so much stuff and most of it did not even belong to him.  At that time I suddenly lost my train of thought and could do nothing but wonder who was taking up space in this man’s home?  I ask him “who are you storing stuff for?”

“Oh, my son, he has so much stuff in the garage that I could never get my car in there. He also has stuff in the spare bedroom,” he said.

“And how old is your son,” I ask.

“Oh, about 42,” he said.

I thought my head was going to explode.  I could not let that go by, just as I seem to get the same deer in the headlight reaction from some people when I talk about storage.  Just because there is room for it, then there is a space for it?

I know what you are thinking, that I am a cold heartless person not to keep stuff for your children when they hit hard times. But how long is long enough? When your adult children who have spent the last 20 plus years of their lives collection stuff and establishing their own life and life style, it is fair to expect their elderly parents to store their stuff for free? 

“So let me get this straight,” I ask, “you are giving up square footage of your living space and safe storage for your cars, so your 42 year old son can have free storage for his unneeded and not wanted stuff?”

“You just don’t understand”, he said. “Do you have kids? If you don’t you just don’t understand”

He had me there. I don’t have children but I do deal with this situation a lot in my business. So, when is it time to cut the cord?  Is it fair to expect your grown children to take care of their own stuff?  Reality need to bit at some point. But it is a two way street.  As we concluded our conversation when the Lions club meeting started, I had to ask, “Don’t you think you should cut the cord so he has to deal with his own stuff?”

“We do, but he always attached it again.”  

“He only does what you let him do.”  There goes the deer in the headlights again. At that point I gave up and ordered another beer.