Culture Study Podcast - What Do We Do With All This STUFF？？

00:00:00.820 Hey, everyone. So a couple pieces of news for you today. First, we released a bonus

00:00:05.340 episode about The Pit a few days ago with the great Margaret H. Willison. It's just

00:00:10.040 for subscribers. So if that sounds like your kind of thing, become a paid subscriber at

00:00:14.100 patreon.com slash culture study and get immediate access. We talk all about season two, what

00:00:20.080 did and did not work, who is the hottest, very important questions. We also announced

00:00:25.780 that Margaret is going to be joining the culture study universe permanently. She'll

00:00:29.620 be doing monthly bonus episodes with me, along with a monthly newsletter feature called the

00:00:34.040 Zeitgeist Syllabus, in which she'll give you a bunch of reading assignments for understanding

00:00:38.460 whatever thing people are obsessing about at that moment. So we're talking like historical context,

00:00:44.580 like stuff that was written in 1950 about this same idea, and stuff that was written 10 years

00:00:50.220 ago, and stuff that's really making the rounds right now that's more elucidating. You can read

00:00:55.080 my introductory interview with her at the link in the show notes. And I also wanted to let you know

00:01:00.040 about a few upcoming episodes so that you can get your questions in. You've all been like on a tear

00:01:05.640 recently. Our questions have been so good. A plus. Everyone gives you compliments. So let me use that

00:01:12.660 as incentive for you to submit a few more. We're doing one on creativity and AI. So this is

00:01:18.480 specifically about how AI can or cannot to work with our kind of creative juices.

00:01:25.420 We're doing this episode with Fahini Vara, who I love.

00:01:29.080 She's so smart on this stuff.

00:01:30.940 So please take that in whatever direction you want.

00:01:33.680 It's going to be amazing.

00:01:35.000 We're also doing an episode with Sarah Mesley about white lady hair.

00:01:40.020 You've already submitted some really good questions for this one, but I know there are more.

00:01:43.540 And then another episode with Andrew Sean Greer.

00:01:47.000 He's the author of Less, if you read that.

00:01:49.940 He has a new book out called Villa Coco, and it's all about intergenerational friendships.

00:01:54.720 So we want your questions about intergenerational friendships.

00:01:59.020 What makes them hard?

00:02:00.140 What makes them gratifying?

00:02:01.380 How do you find them?

00:02:02.600 Take it again wherever you want.

00:02:04.820 And we also, of course, need to replenish our tank of Ask Anne Anything questions.

00:02:09.180 You can submit all of these at tinyurl.com slash culturestudypod.

00:02:14.880 Okay, thanks.

00:02:15.760 And as always, enjoy the show.

00:02:24.680 This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.

00:02:28.580 Hi, I'm Tara Brimmer, and I'm a home organizer.

00:02:32.020 Okay, so Tara, your background is in psychology and counseling.

00:02:35.860 How did you get from there to professional organizer?

00:02:39.000 I think a lot of people have this sort of question, like how does someone become a professional

00:02:43.780 organizer? Well, in my experience, I just did it. I just started doing it. It turns out you can just

00:02:50.000 do things. Yeah, I was practicing counseling before I had kids. And then I had children and

00:02:57.140 wanted to stay home with them. So I stayed home with them for full time for probably eight years.

00:03:02.900 And then so I have three kids. And once the third one came home, I was like, Oh, dear,

00:03:09.460 I would like to do something where I get some satisfaction and maybe some affirmation and maybe

00:03:16.340 some money because turns out having children is kind of thankless they're not being like thank

00:03:21.820 you for doing what you do mommy um I just found a lot of like gratification and like I call it

00:03:28.840 healthy control like if I was gonna have control or mastery over this junk drawer that made me feel

00:03:35.640 pretty good whereas you know being a stay-at-home mom you know you don't always know when there's

00:03:41.000 gonna be you know a blowout diaper or a no nap day and it's hard thankless uh so I I was like

00:03:48.340 I need to do something where I get some thanks so I had been sort of like blogging about organizing

00:03:52.880 because I did it in my own house and then I was like you know what someone's gonna pay me to do

00:03:56.680 this I bet and so I started the business and just did it well and I also like knowing what you know

00:04:04.400 about psychology and counseling like those are things that are actually very important when it

00:04:10.160 comes to thinking about stuff and our relationship to stuff and we had an we did an interview on the

00:04:16.500 podcast several months ago with the daughter of two hoarders and talking to her about all of the

00:04:23.860 things that she has learned about herself and about her parents and the psychology of hoarding

00:04:28.320 and i found it really really interesting because it prompted a lot of conversations and self

00:04:33.600 interrogation about like, all of us have relationships to stuff. Absolutely. Every

00:04:39.100 society is different about telling us what is a proper and improper relationship. And where does

00:04:44.540 that line fall? It changes all the time. Yeah, I do think it's a weird thing that I have a job

00:04:51.540 where when I speak to non Americans, it's got to blow their minds. I have a job where I get paid 0.99

00:04:58.920 to help people deal with their excessiveness the psychology does play into it the personality types

00:05:04.540 i love the enneagram i love all personality typing but that's my kind of go-to like i'm gonna

00:05:10.140 suggest different things to different people based on how i know they approach the world

00:05:15.960 um i mean not everybody knows their enneagram type but i try to get to know my clients really

00:05:21.020 well and um make some some educated guesses but certainly like mental illness at the kind of

00:05:28.460 extreme or just depression, anxiety, ADHD, autism, all those things figure into our relationship to

00:05:36.180 our house and our things. And so I want to set people up for success. So I try not to do something

00:05:42.080 for them or with them that's not sustainable. We have a lot of questions today. We're going

00:05:47.420 to treat this as sort of an advice time segment, extended advice time segment. Obviously, this

00:05:54.180 advice is not going to work for everyone. It might work for you. Some of it is about handling your

00:05:59.300 own feelings. A lot of it is about handling other people's feelings and specifically about handling

00:06:04.900 the feelings of your parents or relatives. Because the thing that prompted us to do this episode was

00:06:10.660 just hearing from a lot of people about stuff that they are receiving from their parents, 0.62

00:06:17.580 the millennial stuff dump, right? Or is that what we want to call it, Melody? I feel like we need a

00:06:22.720 I love it. No, I was kind of no, but better than stuff dump, like millennial stuff dump is actually 0.53

00:06:31.500 the boomer stuff dump. So millennials are inheriting a stuff dump from their parents 0.72

00:06:38.360 and that generation. I think actually our parents also dealt with this from their parents who were 1.00

00:06:45.040 the first to really like go through adulthood in the post-war, very consumerist period. And a lot

00:06:51.520 of them too, at least in my situation, like my grandparents were very scarred by the depression

00:06:56.220 and have some accumulative tendencies because of that. So it's not so much that they were obsessed

00:07:02.880 with buying things. It was that they were obsessed with keeping things. That's right. And actually,

00:07:07.020 as a sociology person, like I would love your thoughts on this. The boomers are in a very 0.93

00:07:13.460 unique position. Nobody's had as much stuff as them before. I know. And so and no one's had as 1.00

00:07:19.660 big houses that they can keep all their stuff. Many of them, but many of them have very large

00:07:24.800 houses where they have been able to accumulate these things. Yeah. And they don't move. They

00:07:28.940 stay, you know, in the same house for 30 years. So there's no like automatic purging. So yeah,

00:07:34.480 like the generational thing is huge. They've got those, the silent generation sensibilities of like

00:07:40.220 saving and keeping, but they don't have the millennial sense of like, oh no, but I can

00:07:44.860 afford to buy my own china i don't need yours yeah or no china at all right oh and we'll get into

00:07:50.780 that too and i think also one thing we'll talk about is like millennials don't necessarily have

00:07:54.940 the space to absorb all of these materials on gen x too right like we are in a place where like there

00:08:01.440 is now many generations of accumulated stuff and less space than ever because the way that our

00:08:08.980 economy is because of the way that the generations have worked less space than ever to keep it and

00:08:13.880 also less desire to keep it so we have both of those things coming together all right we're

00:08:18.940 gonna try not to spend an entire hour on every question even though we could so can i give my

00:08:23.960 own caveat before we get into the questions yeah yes please because i do think that all of these

00:08:28.400 questions are super thoughtful and pretty serious and i want to approach that with respect but

00:08:34.420 you know i am good all of them are kind of in light of our parents imminent deaths so i think

00:08:40.240 we should just get that out there to begin with. I am going to reference that. You know, I don't

00:08:44.920 want to be flipping about death, but we can talk matter of factly about that, you know. So if I had

00:08:50.660 more information on each one, obviously some of my answers would be different. So I'm just doing

00:08:54.780 the best I can. But, you know, they're good questions. Great caveat. Our first question is

00:09:02.300 not really a question. It's just a list that's representative of the stuff that we're talking

00:09:06.280 about let's hear from amy i wanted to give you a short list of what i've got to sort through

00:09:12.360 my parents dining room table is currently in the garage after they downsized to a condo my little

00:09:20.620 sister's vacuum sealed collection of cabbage patch dolls and outfits that my grandmother

00:09:27.200 handmade for them. My own daughter's boxes of ceramics from elementary school. I am 55 and

00:09:35.740 our house is the extended family storage unit. She might be the only person who has enough space

00:09:41.940 for her sister's Cabbage Patch dolls. This is happening in my family because my brother

00:09:45.840 is too far away to like have his Christmas ornaments, you know, and so like that box is

00:09:51.940 going to be at my house that's but it takes a certain kindness or generosity to say yes but

00:09:59.340 she you know amy sounds generous but the flip side to her generosity is that maybe she says 0.56

00:10:04.620 yes too often and resents it yeah and maybe maybe her family knows that she won't say no to them

00:10:10.160 so it's a boundary issue not to oversimplify but it's not unkind to say to the family members hey

00:10:17.100 I'm clearing out some space at home so if you'd like the dining room table back

00:10:21.000 you can come pick it up before Saturday because I've got the thrift store

00:10:24.300 truck coming for my donations I mean yeah right it's totally fine for her not to want to be 0.74

00:10:29.920 the storage unit and I would be super curious about her daughter so if her daughter if she's 0.86

00:10:34.560 55 maybe her daughter's you know 30 and it's okay like her daughter may not even want that

00:10:40.600 box of ceramics maybe she should ask well and that's the thing is it's always asking this

00:10:45.620 happened actually when my, my mom downsized significantly a couple of years ago. And there

00:10:50.520 were so many things that because I, I didn't want her to throw them away and she had space to keep

00:10:57.020 them. So they just stayed there. But when she did, when she actually, when like rubber hit the road,

00:11:02.900 like that allowed me a chance to, to really make some decisions and we'll get, I'll talk about that

00:11:08.100 a little bit more as we move forward. So we're going to go through questions about what to do

00:11:12.700 with stuff. These are pretty straightforward. We have two questions about photos, which we actually

00:11:19.320 got a ton of questions about photos, and I wanted to include two that are approaching it from

00:11:23.060 slightly different directions. The first question comes from Shelby. I have all of my family photos,

00:11:29.700 three big boxes. I know that I could have them scanned and keep them digitally,

00:11:34.600 but the emotional hurdle of throwing away those physical prints, it's too big to clear. I'm an

00:11:41.220 adult orphan now, and getting rid of those physical photographs feels like I'm losing my parents all

00:11:48.040 over again. I'm also childless, so I don't have anyone to pass these down to. Should I just keep

00:11:53.880 them for now and leave my husband to deal with them after I'm gone? And the second is from Jackie.

00:12:00.940 My mother has a vast amount of family history information, including many photo albums.

00:12:05.620 I don't share her passion, and nor do I want to have responsibility for these when she goes,

00:12:11.920 but no one else in my family wants them either. She has three brothers and two sisters. None of

00:12:17.520 them want them, so it's going to become my problem, and I don't know what to do with them.

00:12:22.380 Okay, so let's tackle this first question first about your own photos. I just saw,

00:12:29.800 I was just advertised. I was just targeted on Instagram. Kodak is doing this box situation

00:12:37.500 where you put all of your photos, like you put them into these little Ziplocs, you put in any

00:12:42.200 like negatives that you might have. A lot of people I know have negatives. They have slides,

00:12:47.200 like any, whatever the format is, you put it into this box, you send it away. And I'm guessing many

00:12:53.780 hundreds of dollars later, you now have a digitalized, you have like a little stick.

00:12:57.820 this is incredible and it I think it takes away some of that emotional hurdle if people have the

00:13:05.720 resources to get it done but she's talking specifically about the physical prints and I

00:13:11.760 totally get this people who didn't grow up with physical prints might not understand the like

00:13:16.860 tactile connection to these photos as much but what would you advise here well I think to like

00:13:22.580 some people have stretched and exercised the discard muscles more than others and some people

00:13:27.760 are fine with getting rid of physical photos I think again this is one of those complicated

00:13:33.360 questions that I don't want to be dismissive of but I think if it's too emotionally difficult to

00:13:37.800 deal with the photos now I don't think three big boxes is a big deal throw them up in the attic

00:13:43.380 I wouldn't even bother scanning them like why would she she doesn't have anybody to pass them

00:13:48.200 down to um it doesn't it just doesn't seem like it'd be worth the money and time oh see i'm so

00:13:55.220 connected well you might be she's like i feel like i know but i but she says i'm an adult orphan now

00:14:01.180 and getting rid of these photos feels like i'm losing my parents all over again like she's gonna

00:14:05.500 want these images i'm not saying get rid of the boxes i'm saying put them up yeah like don't worry

00:14:10.760 about it is what i mean i don't mean like if it was me i'm not as attached to stuff like that so

00:14:17.780 i might discard them but like when she said should i keep them now and my husband can throw them away

00:14:22.980 after i die maybe maybe i think that's an okay choice that's okay i mean if she was like over

00:14:30.260 if her whole household was overwhelming and it was just all this stuff maybe my answer would be

00:14:34.180 different i just don't think three big boxes of photos is a big deal don't worry about it keep

00:14:38.120 them well and i think also decide if you like are you a photo person like do you want some of these

00:14:44.440 photos. You don't have to get them all scanned. One thing you could do, I, you know, when I was

00:14:48.760 a kid, this is part of where I'm a photo person. One of my great pleasures was sitting and leafing

00:14:54.940 through all of our photo albums. We have dozens, dozens of photo albums and my mom would put like

00:15:02.140 little notes next to them and stuff. And I just love like so much of the story I tell myself

00:15:06.440 about like my childhood is, it's really gleaned from the way that these photos were. And so it

00:15:11.900 would be pleasurable to me to go through those photos and I've done this actually I have done

00:15:17.540 this and I did it very wonky digitally like I took pictures with my phone which is not great

00:15:22.960 but to go through select 50 that feel really special to you keep those put them somewhere

00:15:31.080 precious right where like no air no moisture can get to them and digitize those and those are the

00:15:37.940 ones like that you will not lose your parents or your memories of your parents if you keep

00:15:42.020 yeah what you're talking about is a curation and i think that's a huge deal and like yeah get them

00:15:46.500 scanned but maybe just also go ahead and put them in a photo album and put them on your coffee table

00:15:51.060 or somewhere where you know i i personally i went to see a friend um actually a friend's parents um

00:15:58.440 from my childhood and it was to get a trumpet lesson for my daughter so we were just killing

00:16:03.500 time um with while she was getting her lesson and um I asked my friend's mom I was like do you have

00:16:10.100 any photo albums of when me and your girls were teenagers and she pulled these things out and it

00:16:14.380 was a freaking joy and my son was with me and we looked through him so yeah there there's something

00:16:19.940 to be said for that and like just friends looking at things I think that's fine and um what I would

00:16:25.640 say how to make time to do that if she wants to get down to the practical nitty-gritty pull one 1.00

00:16:29.760 of those boxes out. Put on a junk TV show that you don't have to pay that much attention to. 1.00

00:16:34.900 Yeah. Get a glass of wine or a coffee or, you know, make it like an event. Maybe your spouse

00:16:39.460 is with you. Body doubling doesn't have to be going through it with you. And just sit down and

00:16:45.160 do it. And then you've got a nice experience and you've got the reward of having, you know,

00:16:50.620 getting it done. Or like one box per weekend. Right. Right. Per month. Right. That's how I

00:16:55.240 divvy up tasks. I'm like, okay, this weekend I'm going to do that one box and then I'm going to do

00:16:59.320 another box of, uh, you know, so that doesn't seem like there's, yeah, put it on the calendar,

00:17:02.920 making an appointment with yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Second question is about photos of people.

00:17:08.560 And we have a little bit of this photos of people that you do not know, right? Like extended family,

00:17:15.180 like, and we got a lot of this and they're oftentimes they're really beautiful photos

00:17:20.560 because they were from a time that's right when people took so many fewer photos so she doesn't

00:17:28.060 want them she doesn't share this passion just not want this responsibility no one else in the family

00:17:33.060 wants the responsibility i have an idea but i would love to hear your idea okay yeah i can't

00:17:37.800 wait to hear yours um so when she said it's going to become she says it's going to become my problem

00:17:42.160 i assume that means after her mom has died and i say at that time it's okay to get rid of them

00:17:47.580 My personal preference is not to throw them away.

00:17:50.680 It would be to, like, there are some people who want vintage photos,

00:17:56.080 even if they don't know the subjects.

00:17:58.020 So I would offer them for free in a buy nothing group.

00:18:01.200 It really is okay.

00:18:02.660 I often think about what people might use the photos for, decor.

00:18:06.960 Or there's a vintage lady who sells moomoo's here in Birmingham.

00:18:12.620 She helped dress people on the set of White Lotus.

00:18:16.160 and um sorry caftans excuse me and um so um all of her price tags are on little vintage photos

00:18:30.100 of whatever little black and white that's so cool it's so cool and so she has a stamp on the back

00:18:34.880 that's got her name and stuff on it and like i kept one it was a picture of a church a little

00:18:39.100 white church yeah just adorable so people might use that someone might use it to dress a set if

00:18:44.800 they're filming a film or you know whatever so I would say I think a lot of times people are like

00:18:49.940 no one's gonna want that and I'm like no we we gotta always default to try to give it to its

00:18:54.640 next owner in my opinion that is such a great idea the other one that I would advise and I would

00:19:00.120 actually task your mom with this because I think if you are really into family history you are also

00:19:07.400 into the preservation of family history have your mom look into the historical societies of the

00:19:13.540 places where your extended family grew up because they want those photos they absolutely want those

00:19:18.800 photos and so if you can arrange for a donation after you pass like what a gift yeah and if

00:19:26.900 anyone's listening to this and thinking about this what a gift to your future family to have

00:19:31.360 a repository for them if your family doesn't want them i love this idea

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00:23:52.260 Amelia. My husband and I were so fortunate to move into and buy my grandparents' old house,

00:23:58.060 and we love it. There are still quite a few of their belongings here that we've either adopted

00:24:02.740 as our own or stored in the attic. My parents have helped with clearing out some of the furniture

00:24:07.820 and kitchen items, but the thing I'm stuck on is the library. My grandparents were big readers and

00:24:13.600 we have boxes and boxes of their books taking up space. I just can't stomach the idea of bringing

00:24:19.100 the books to the dump, but I don't know what to do with them. There are so many that I can't

00:24:23.800 feasibly donate them to a thrift store or library. Also, most of them are nonfiction on topics like

00:24:29.880 Catholicism and history. After three years of living here, I still haven't found a solution

00:24:35.000 and would love any suggestions. So I just, I know exactly what these books look like.

00:24:40.500 Like I can picture them so vividly. My granddad had this huge like armoire almost full of this

00:24:47.240 type of old book, most of them nonfiction. I'm just picturing the Catholic, like Catholic history

00:24:52.780 is like such a niche thing it's just lovely um you actually probably cannot donate them to the

00:24:59.440 library the library does not want them they do not want old books like that that they cannot

00:25:03.320 circulate like that is not a repository for them thrift stores maybe but probably not so there is

00:25:10.060 i do have an idea for this but i would love to hear yours first again um i i really do wish that

00:25:14.860 we knew how many books we were talking about this is a really interesting challenge well boxes and

00:25:19.700 boxes i'm thinking like yeah like 500 plus at least i mean i had the thought of maybe contacting

00:25:28.600 a local catholic church and seeing could somebody use these some churches have very specific

00:25:34.600 libraries on their own on their grounds yeah um i would also think about contacting a university

00:25:40.800 if there's something that might be useful to university i've got a bunch of old geology

00:25:45.060 books um that belong to my husband and I feel like someday they might be useful in some sort

00:25:50.940 of archival you know university situation um but I would open up a box take some pictures of the

00:25:58.240 titles and condition um but I just feel like you never know who could use them and if you feel

00:26:03.300 like donating or like dealing with them in a slow manner you could also just for funsies offer them

00:26:08.920 as a lot i'll offer some books like as a box like this box is 20 like see on facebook marketplace

00:26:17.620 someone might be decorating a house and they just need some pretty colored spines or whatever i just

00:26:23.320 feel like i never want to be the one i don't want the buck to stop with me if i can help it in terms

00:26:27.880 of like going to the landfill i just hate waste yeah um so if you don't have the time call the

00:26:34.660 thrift store and just see, just ask them, just ask them. Same idea. So many people want old books.

00:26:40.520 So for the hardbacks, that is, I think if you put that on Facebook marketplace,

00:26:45.400 someone is going to jump at it. I want, I want her to do it. Amelia, do it and report back. 1.00

00:26:53.220 The paperbacks, many paperbacks can actually be recycled. Like they can just be recycled as paper.

00:26:59.200 so that's a different opportunity than the landfill so that's like I there is less of a

00:27:05.180 market for very old paperback so I would divide them by hardback and paperback and then I would

00:27:10.540 hopefully sell them as decoration which historically many of these types of books

00:27:15.840 were used as decorated like they were only decorative in the first place really like

00:27:20.180 they were things that were passed down through families and they just stayed there and they were

00:27:23.120 musty and no one used them so it's not like you are like alienating them from their purpose

00:27:28.380 necessarily and i think it's a good lesson for us to learn i'm gen x so you've got gen x and

00:27:32.900 millennial listeners probably for the most part and it's like a good lesson for us what is it that

00:27:38.180 we want to pass down what is the point of a book is the point to like for me fiction i'm never gonna

00:27:44.480 buy a physical copy of fiction that's my kindle only um well because i never reread them i don't

00:27:54.040 really reread fiction. Right. But they are my friends. They need to stay with me. Well, come on.

00:27:58.620 Teach your own. It's fine. Like I do. Yeah, exactly. I have no judgment on that. It's just

00:28:05.660 my preference. But like I have a lot of friends who write books. I keep their books. Those are

00:28:09.960 my friends. Or in some cases, I will pass them along to someone specific if I know that they

00:28:16.460 will enjoy them after I've read them. Now, books that I reference a lot like nonfiction or whatever

00:28:20.780 I do keep but like I'm also not going to keep textbooks um one caveat again millions of

00:28:28.060 caveats and nuances here um my father-in-law was an engineering student at Purdue University and

00:28:34.360 then my husband was and now my son is and so we have some of his like fluid mechanics books or

00:28:40.060 whatever and they are really beautiful my son likes to flip through them I think that that's

00:28:44.240 fine but like if you're doing child psych from the 90s we don't need child psych we can just

00:28:49.680 Especially the 90s, the cover of 90s textbooks are so bad.

00:28:55.500 Yes.

00:28:57.400 Okay, another one, I think we can have a quick answer to this one.

00:29:00.400 This one comes from Amy.

00:29:01.700 Regarding stuff from relatives, how do I ethically get it out of my house?

00:29:06.420 I can take most anything to Goodwill, but how much of the stuff they get,

00:29:10.080 especially post-holidays, are they actually selling,

00:29:12.960 and how much is just going into a landfill?

00:29:14.860 Bill. Somewhat related, I want to get rid of the wrapping paper and gift bags we've saved for next

00:29:21.060 year that are just accumulating in the closet. Is there a good way to do this or should I cut out

00:29:27.380 the middleman and just recycle or trash it all? Okay, so I don't give stuff to Goodwill unless

00:29:33.660 it's, I absolutely have to. I try, personally, I try to be more directed in like, okay, so these

00:29:39.240 are house goods and we have a store in town that is specifically for house goods. It's through

00:29:43.420 Habitat for Humanity. Other stuff that I know someone on the island could use, I post it on

00:29:49.000 Nextdoor and put it on my curb. That's Melody's favorite device too. And then singing the praises

00:29:55.620 of Buy Nothing. I think sometimes people are like, well, what if someone is going to resell it? And

00:30:00.180 I'm like, good for them. Then they're going to spend the time and earn that money. Like,

00:30:04.020 that's fine. I don't want to do that. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. It's such like this weird,

00:30:09.680 like I don't know moralism of people being scared that someone is going to take something from you

00:30:15.140 for free and then they're going to make money from it I'm like good that's yeah it doesn't go to

00:30:19.220 waste I mean I do donate to the thrift store a lot because we are doing big excavations so my team

00:30:26.060 like we're we are going quickly time is money and so taking the time to parse things out is not

00:30:32.840 usually within the scope of the job unless someone specifically requires it I do have some clients

00:30:37.040 who were like, it would mean a lot to me if somebody who really loves Halloween would take

00:30:42.560 these foggers. This happened to me like a month ago. And so I took the foggers and instead of

00:30:47.860 putting them at the thrift store, I put them on my porch and I did buy nothing. And it was great.

00:30:53.000 And in fact, my neighbor across the street is the one who saw it online. I know, I know. And I don't

00:30:58.360 even, and now you're going to see those foggers. And I'm going to think of my client who's so

00:31:02.140 generous um i do like to let goodwill and other charities do their thing because they do have a

00:31:09.100 rubric on how things get sold and how they get marked down and how they get recycled or discarded

00:31:15.060 but i do know that like when you're doing maintenance if you're just in a maintenance

00:31:19.620 phase of like decluttering you can take the shovel instead of the excavator and because it does feel

00:31:25.920 better to give things to people who need them or want them um sell on facebook marketplace i'm

00:31:31.720 to be honest i don't sell a lot there because i don't know why people don't like my stuff so

00:31:36.740 whatever um i'm like this is a good thing but see that's the other thing is we all value our

00:31:41.220 own possessions more than other people might but also see this is like regarding stuff from

00:31:45.760 relatives like this person does not want to make any money off of this and this is why i say buy

00:31:50.200 nothing yes and just do a porch pickup yep like let go of that desire that you have to like and

00:31:56.160 you could say this for stuff that even you kind of care about and you're like i could get five

00:32:00.000 dollars from this let go of the five dollars again back to what i said earlier about how this can

00:32:07.060 inform us moving forward with our own possessions i mean this is why i have such a conviction that

00:32:12.500 reduce reuse recycle yes but the greatest of these is reduce do your part to stop the over

00:32:20.600 consumption and and deal with the stuff as it as you need to don't let stuff pile up yeah and if

00:32:27.100 Like this person, I think I'm trying to remember, but there was a couple others that were like, oh, my gosh, I've tried to have so many conversations with my relatives about like, stop giving me these gifts, like stop giving me this, you know, just like tchotchkes and stuff.

00:32:40.820 Like sometimes it's people who they're the way that they express love is by giving things and does not matter what the value of those things or if the person wants those things, they have to receive those things.

00:32:51.700 But there are ways to get those to other people who would actually like them.

00:32:55.200 And I know that people have ethical obligations to being on Facebook.

00:32:59.460 I think I understand it.

00:33:01.680 Just get on it and like, or post on your neighborhood lists or like whatever way you have of connecting with your community, people will take it.

00:33:10.860 Melody, do you have good, you have good experiences with just leaving a box in front of your house?

00:33:15.480 Oh, it disappears 100% of the time in a day.

00:33:19.040 And if it's larger, we just like tape a piece of paper to it.

00:33:22.360 It says free.

00:33:23.060 or like needs new bulb or like works kind of works kind of there is a buy nothing app i tried

00:33:30.760 to use it a couple years ago it was super buggy but i have the feeling it's better now so that's

00:33:35.100 another thing if people don't want to be on facebook okay second half of this episode is

00:33:39.120 all about this is so in your wheelhouse how stuff impacts our relationships so we get to talk all

00:33:45.200 about it this question comes from sophie my grandparents had their service for 12 good china

00:33:50.420 shipped to us, with each piece individually bubble-wrapped when my husband and I got married

00:33:55.240 in 2002. It's a perfectly lovely ivory with gold trim and is a pattern that's been discontinued

00:34:00.920 but isn't in high demand on the resale market. Our options are re-gift, donate to Goodwill,

00:34:06.460 throw away, or just use it. After using these dishes maybe 10 times in 23 years, I think I'm

00:34:12.160 just going to put them into regular use and not sweat the inevitable chipping or degradation of

00:34:16.640 a gold trim. I suspect I'm going to get the hairy eyeball about it, especially from my parents.

00:34:22.140 Any advice on conveying this belongs to me and I'll do what I want with it in a light slash

00:34:26.720 funny yet firm way? I mean, shout out to Sophie for using the stuff. This is one that came up

00:34:32.140 so often in a recent thread that we did about dealing with stuff. And so many people were like,

00:34:37.820 use the china, use it, put it in the dishwasher. So do you have any tips for her that she can say

00:34:44.520 when people act weird about it and in my notes i wrote in all caps 100 use them super supportive

00:34:51.520 of that uh not to oversimplify i hate this i hate not having all the context but like ignore the

00:34:58.080 hairy eyeball halves these these septuagenarians they're wonderful my parents are are them but they 0.50

00:35:07.340 probably aren't going to change and if they just say whatever comes to the top of their head that's

00:35:11.900 just what they're going to do and you can choose to like take it personally or not um I would

00:35:17.540 suggest some light phrases to have in your back pocket if you feel like you need to say anything

00:35:22.160 at all and tone is everything like you yeah my phrases aren't that clever but like if you just

00:35:29.060 say oh I just love them so much so I use them say it with a smile yeah yeah totally they mean a lot

00:35:35.880 to me so I like seeing them every day or I want my kids to have memories yes absolutely I have

00:35:41.880 memories of my parents China because they use it all that my parents my you know boomer parents

00:35:46.500 use theirs all the time and like I think I might say that like oh yeah I don't throw a lot of formal

00:35:51.320 dinner parties or any dinner dinner parties so I just would rather use them and then if they

00:35:55.660 disapprove just let it roll love it great strategy okay next question comes from Emily my spouse and

00:36:02.420 I are child free and are both at the age where our parents are wanting to pass along family heirlooms

00:36:07.940 and memorabilia to their children knowing that we won't have another generation to inherit these

00:36:13.900 items and also facing the realities of limited storage space we are trying to figure out ways

00:36:19.220 that we can respectfully either decline these items or suggest other options for our parents

00:36:24.900 to part with these sentimental keepsakes how do you suggest tackling these conversations

00:36:29.680 what are some tangible suggestions we can offer our parents ah this is like the question the

00:36:36.860 questions what do you suggest well let me start with a story which is i have a child-free aunt

00:36:42.180 and uncle who have been sending their keepsakes to the nieces and nephews there's a lot of us

00:36:48.040 and it's been such a lovely thing my aunt is so respectful well also people know what i do

00:36:53.400 so like they might be extra careful with me but i know she does this with the other cousins she

00:36:58.980 texts me pictures and she's like hey i was thinking you might enjoy this or is there anything in this

00:37:04.480 photo that you want and like a couple years ago I said oh I love that bird picture it's a

00:37:10.880 blue ceramic picture that's in the shape of a bird and I use it every day to water my plants

00:37:15.920 I love it and I think of her and I think again to prepare ourselves for being the older generation

00:37:21.620 that's the approach like let's offer things that are lovely beautiful useful and be hold of other

00:37:28.780 things loosely um as far as tackling the conversations clear is kind yeah and also kind

00:37:35.220 is kind i think you let them know you're in the process of decluttering because you start to run

00:37:39.780 out of space you tell them you want some of their things and maybe specific items i i think that has

00:37:45.600 meant a lot to my own parents to say hey you know that like turquoise necklace thing that you have

00:37:50.900 in a shadow box on the wall i would like that thing um but when they offer you things that

00:37:57.820 you don't want i would use phrases like oh i wish i had space for that but i don't it's so pretty

00:38:03.580 but maybe my brother would enjoy that that's up his wheelhouse or so-and-so collects vintage

00:38:10.060 quilts i know she would use them for her photo shoots when she shoots people out in the in the

00:38:15.120 grass or whatever um i i like to make it a conversation a back and forth again people

00:38:20.060 love to give away things when they know someone values it so help them let it be a collaboration

00:38:26.460 um sometimes like don't shut it down but like in in some cases i do think the kind thing might be to

00:38:34.960 just take the thing and later deal with it if you know it's going to cause a whole upheaval

00:38:42.020 let's preserve the relationship first and then later you can decide what you're going to do with

00:38:46.800 it yeah and i think like oftentimes sometimes like it's sharing a memory that you have about

00:38:53.800 that thing and how much you wish that you would have space like my grandmother's piano I would

00:38:58.880 have loved loved to have had it but no space for it and also the cost of transporting it

00:39:05.260 would have been so significant and so cumbersome um that there was just no way and instead and I

00:39:13.480 get to keep this story with me now my mom was able to sell it for very little money like it wasn't

00:39:19.120 about the money to a family and a young girl who was starting piano lessons. And now I learned to

00:39:27.080 play piano on that piano. And now another little girl who I don't know, right? But she gets to

00:39:32.780 learn piano on that piano. And that's just as meaningful to me in some ways, right? I am not

00:39:38.160 so stuck in family lineage that it feels bad to have someone outside of my family benefiting from

00:39:44.960 that thing if that makes sense. Agreed. I had a friend she's actually in her 70s she was getting

00:39:50.120 rid of a bookcase that her brother built for her decades ago and she was like I just don't have

00:39:57.620 space for it I don't need it I don't want it we do you do you want it and I was like you know

00:40:02.880 actually my son one of my kids has a bunch of things that he wants to display and so yes I

00:40:07.440 took it it was a whole ordeal um and he styled it and it was my joy to take a picture of it and

00:40:15.340 send it to her yes and I think that that made both of us feel really good you know yeah yeah I do I

00:40:21.560 like your idea of helping your parents come up with places that they could bring it I tried to

00:40:26.960 do that a little bit with my mom she was very clever about it already like we have this old

00:40:32.680 pinball machine like an actual like pre-digital pinball machine huge size that had lived many

00:40:40.260 lives before we even got it and again what I would give to have this pinball machine in my life now

00:40:46.840 I love it so much sometimes I watch YouTube videos of it I love that it's a baseball themed pinball

00:40:53.160 machine but it needed repairs which would have cost a lot of money also how do you get a pinball

00:40:57.880 machine across two states in a ferry uh and she found this guy in the next town over who was

00:41:06.520 rehabbing pinball machines to open up an arcade for like teenagers like love this next life for

00:41:12.780 the spinball machine um but again she found it but there were other things that i kind of i was

00:41:18.700 hopefully able to give some suggestions about maybe who would like it where it could go yeah

00:41:23.360 Yeah, and I think, too, as grownups, when I see something that maybe is from my childhood

00:41:28.040 and maybe a sibling has it or my parents are still using it, like, I'll just give you an

00:41:32.140 example.

00:41:32.740 My parents have this teapot you put directly on the, you know, on the burner, and it's

00:41:37.840 that old Corningware just.

00:41:40.620 Yep, I can picture it in my head.

00:41:42.200 And I love it so much.

00:41:44.360 I just went on eBay and I found it and I bought it.

00:41:46.400 And that thing makes me really happy.

00:41:51.780 That's great.

00:41:52.340 I have $20. I can buy this.

00:41:56.360 So we've talked about parents, dealing with parent stuff.

00:42:01.220 This gets a little thornier when you're talking about in-laws.

00:42:05.080 And Melody's going to read this question from Natalie.

00:42:07.580 How do I convince my in-laws that we cannot eventually take all of the stuff in their 3,000 square foot home,

00:42:13.960 including a giant basement stuffed to the gills with holiday decor, games, clothes, photos, scrapbooks, regular books, etc.

00:42:20.940 And that not being able to take all of the stuff does not mean I hate all of it or won't take any of it.

00:42:27.080 How should I tease out the subtle difference between I don't want this many things in my house versus I don't want this many of your things in my house when considering family dynamics and relationships and general mass consumerism and perfectionism?

00:42:41.860 Oof-da-boof-da.

00:42:43.120 Okay, what's your take here, Tara?

00:42:45.260 This is another really tough situation with the in-law component.

00:42:50.940 um i think that like just as your relationship goes it you do want to make sure there's a

00:42:58.980 difference it like let them know like oh yeah i do this thing to be decluttery or it's that it's

00:43:05.460 not just about them you know what i mean um i'm i'm wondering if she has already said something

00:43:11.280 about this like she won't be able to take it like are they asking her to take it now or soon

00:43:16.380 I also, this is such a classic example of like the woman of the house is expected to

00:43:21.440 deal with the in-laws. 0.65

00:43:23.640 Really, this is a conversation that their partner should be having with their parents.

00:43:29.200 And as a future mother-in-law of a boy, I have two sons.

00:43:33.900 Like, I need to learn from this.

00:43:37.240 I need to know that I need to deal with my son and also just really think about her, 0.83

00:43:42.100 this future woman who I don't know yet. 0.99

00:43:44.620 You know what I'm saying? 0.90

00:43:45.340 like she doesn't want this crappy whatever that means a lot to us my daughter might I don't know

00:43:51.020 um so I I'm wondering if she means if Natalie means after they die yes I think so so I think

00:43:58.940 but also maybe it's because we cannot eventually take all of the stuff in their 3,000 square foot

00:44:04.300 okay yeah yeah I think a lot of people around our age are looking at their parents or in-laws

00:44:11.960 homes and thinking about the inevitable. Yeah. Right. 10, 15 years down the road and just like

00:44:20.640 hearing stories of other people who have had to do this and just wishing that there might be a

00:44:26.880 little bit of a conversation about reducing it. It doesn't have to be, you know, Swedish death 0.57

00:44:31.740 cleaning, which is like, you know, cleaning in preparation for your death, like in a very

00:44:36.400 spartan way um but it could be just thinking about the gift that you would give but i think a lot of

00:44:43.060 people in this maybe is very american are so scared of death that like in some ways getting

00:44:50.040 rid of some of those things is like inviting death to your door does that make sense oh yeah

00:44:55.660 that's happened to a family member in my family an in-law situation where my husband asked for

00:45:01.460 something and they were like no I'm not getting rid of that because it felt too close to death

00:45:08.580 and my husband was not suggesting you're gonna die he was just knew this thing wasn't being used

00:45:15.660 and would like to use it and it was immediately shut down so okay lesson learned let's not let's

00:45:20.480 not do that I do think that this question is about fear and anxiety the fear and anxiety that we have

00:45:27.000 that like we're gonna be facing death a will potential weird stuff with the will planning a

00:45:34.200 funeral clearing out a house while grieving like that sucks but i'm gonna tell you like it's gonna

00:45:42.580 be okay it's annoying that this generation often forces us to deal with this while we're grieving

00:45:48.840 after they're gone but that may be better than having a huge fight about it now yeah so in some

00:45:55.760 cases i'm like pick your battle pick your battle time i don't know that i would try to convince

00:46:02.220 anybody of anything in this situation yeah especially as the daughter-in-law right like

00:46:08.120 just just don't but i i also i i have some empathy for natalie here because i think

00:46:14.080 she also maybe is sensei and that like when this happens that she will take on a lot of the burden

00:46:19.740 she may and to sound a little coarse what's going to happen is the death is going to happen the

00:46:25.560 funeral is going to happen and then one person will probably take the lead we'll say it's her

00:46:30.220 and you're gonna start the charge you're gonna parse out belongings and then you're gonna get

00:46:37.240 a dumpster or you're gonna get the thrift store truck and you're gonna have a painful shitty week

00:46:42.580 and then it'll be over within you know again there's I know no other context but you're gonna 0.95

00:46:51.520 to have a short period of time where it's going to suck, but I just don't know that it's worth

00:46:55.100 the battle right now while the parents are still alive. I don't know.

00:46:58.820 All right. Nope. I hear that. I really hear that. And I think everyone has to think about

00:47:02.860 how ready the older person in their life or the person who needs stuff you're going to have to

00:47:12.060 deal with, how ready are they to have this conversation? If they are very much not ready

00:47:15.820 and they're not going to be ready, then save yourself the pain now. I agree with that for sure.

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00:51:30.000 We have two kind of philosophical questions that are turning back to the self to end on.

00:51:36.300 This question comes from Megan and Melody's going to read it.

00:51:39.660 In response to the prompt about stuff from relatives, I'm wondering if social media is influencing how I feel about furniture my relatives have passed on.

00:51:47.800 My husband and I bought a house recently and were kindly offered lots of furniture from relatives.

00:51:53.140 While we were grateful for and did accept some of it, we turned a lot down, in part because we didn't like how it looked.

00:51:59.020 For how some of our relatives reacted to this, like we should take whatever we're offered and just be glad of it,

00:52:04.500 I got the sense that in previous generations, a sense of personal style, especially when it comes to your home, was considered a frivolous luxury.

00:52:12.800 I can't help but wonder, has Instagram created or fostered the sense that you should curate what's in your home and that there is a predominant aesthetic that this should follow?

00:52:21.640 I'm struggling to balance the sense of being grateful for the pieces we did take with their family connections and stories, while feeling a little resentful that I'm expected to accept anything that's offered.

00:52:32.140 But I feel that it mightn't have bothered me so much if I didn't spend so much time on social media seeing perfect homes.

00:52:37.920 I think this is much more pervasive than, say, interior design magazines of the past because of the hours spent on our phones as opposed to picking up a magazine once a month.

00:52:47.440 Okay, so I understand what Megan is trying to get at here, right?

00:52:52.020 And I also, we are so obsessed and you see this in interior design and also in like redoing kitchens and stuff like that with redoing things and redecorating, right?

00:53:04.720 Whereas my grandparents' home, there was a sofa, there was a settee that was very special to me because I thought it was so fancy when I was a little kid.

00:53:15.720 A dark walnut, like kind of ornate, and then it had maroon velvet.

00:53:21.040 it and they had it from the time that they moved into that house in like the late 50s early 60s

00:53:29.400 until my granddad passed away in 2011 it was just there and there were so many other pieces same

00:53:39.500 thing either that they had that had been passed down to them or that they bought it once and then

00:53:45.120 they kept it forever now part of the reason for this is that stuff was better like furniture was

00:53:50.660 just better 100 this is just this is just a kitchen cabinets were built better yeah yes

00:53:55.020 everything um couches lasted longer that sort of thing and I totally like I understand that

00:54:02.340 at the same time the way that a lot of our parents and grandparents furniture makes a room feel

00:54:10.800 like that is different the way that a bunch of heavy cherry furniture matching set in your

00:54:19.820 bedroom the way that that makes a room feel is different and i think it's okay to be like that's

00:54:26.140 not the feel i'm going for what do you think here i think that what we're talking about really is

00:54:32.920 contentment and yes the internet does affect our contentment i mean for sure ig is a problem

00:54:40.940 before that was blogs and as she mentioned it was decorating magazines and yeah for sure yeah but

00:54:46.520 if if ig is contributing to the dissatisfaction mess around the algorithm and try to foster a

00:54:53.020 sense of contentment in other ways but i also think that the cost of production uh and imports

00:54:59.000 has allowed us to be choosier about what we have and we are just exposed to more choices no matter

00:55:05.140 what i mean going to walmart for pete's sake um you know back in the day you needed your

00:55:11.000 grandmother's china because otherwise you wouldn't have any today we can buy our own

00:55:15.960 dishes or by, you know, something that that does please us. So I, I think maybe quiet down the

00:55:21.980 algorithm. Yeah, I do. I do see this obsession with like, everything needs to be an expression

00:55:27.720 of our true selves. And it needs to be at once individual, but also conformist at the same time.

00:55:34.480 It's very, very tricky needle to thread, right? You should have a house that doesn't feel

00:55:40.260 cookie cutter in any way but also you should do it under a certain budget and uh things should be

00:55:46.940 nice but like with that said and I think you're right like the more we get away from design stuff

00:55:53.520 like unfollow those accounts like make sure that your suggested posts are off all that sort of

00:55:58.340 thing but the thing the heart or at least this is what sang to me from this question is the

00:56:04.460 grandparents or parents being kind of like miffed that like how dare you not accept my gift that's

00:56:10.300 this is this is an expensive piece of furniture this is quality right well okay so what about

00:56:16.820 using humor to disarm that like like i know you're right i'm vain or i i know i'm picky

00:56:25.840 it's so annoying i can't help it like just like this this just just doesn't really go with like

00:56:31.620 the rest of our house like it's a really like compliment it be like this is the craftsmanship

00:56:37.120 on this yeah that's better that's better yeah so high it's so high it's just too bad that this wood

00:56:42.600 just doesn't match with the rest of our wood or whatever i know and i just if my wood doesn't

00:56:46.500 match it's really gonna be bothersome to me yeah like i like that better mine might sound a little

00:56:51.960 judgy to that you know i think the other thing that sometimes people don't account for is how

00:56:57.500 difficult it is to move stuff from one place to another um and to to make something that like

00:57:03.320 instead of getting a table that fits your tiny apartment right because like sometimes you have

00:57:08.680 like a very like it needs to be a pretty specific size and you have to spend a lot of time finding a

00:57:13.560 table that is that size instead just being like well i'm going to make this large ass table that

00:57:18.880 my this my mom's grandma's work in this space there's there's joy to that but also it can make

00:57:24.940 you every time you enter that space, you feel cramped, you feel claustrophobic. Like one of

00:57:29.920 the joys of adulthood is being able to have a little bit more choice. And it doesn't even mean

00:57:34.500 that you need to spend a bunch of extra money. It might mean that you go to the thrift store

00:57:38.920 and you find a table that someone like your mom or your grandma donated. And then you bring that

00:57:44.940 right-sized piece of furniture into your house. Yeah. And I think that's a perfect example where

00:57:50.360 could say I hate that I cannot fit this thing in my kitchen I hate it yeah yeah yeah yeah right

00:57:56.260 just like this is our whole strategy here is like compliment and I know what's it called like the

00:58:03.480 the compliment sandwich that's not what it's called yeah no no compliment sandwich yeah okay

00:58:07.740 yeah yeah um okay and then I wanted to end with this question because I think a lot of us who

00:58:13.720 have maybe internalized some of this decluttering mindset like we're trying to help other people in

00:58:19.380 our lives declutter, like some of it involves taking some pretty like extreme measures. But

00:58:25.060 we're also worried about thinking about what if I take this too far? So this question comes from

00:58:32.140 Noelle. Like many millennials, I'm navigating the stuff dump for my boomer parents and feel like

00:58:37.440 I've developed a pretty good system for it. Most of it is immediately disposed of one way or another.

00:58:42.760 However, I feel like this is impacting my own system around keeping things. And I sometimes

00:58:47.300 think I'm being too liberal in what I toss in an effort to not become my parents and burden my

00:58:52.240 children with stuff. It's like I'm living in an extreme, drowning in stuff from my parents

00:58:57.540 and keeping almost nothing of my own. What is worth saving? How can I strike a better balance

00:59:03.440 of knowing what might be worth holding on to and what should be tossed? And how does the

00:59:08.560 inshittification of everything factor into this? Will things today even last if I deem them worthy?

00:59:14.880 First of all, is inshittification, is that a word?

00:59:17.340 Is that a thing?

00:59:18.220 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:59:19.000 It's a concept, comes from Cory Doctorow.

00:59:22.020 And it's this idea that basically stuff in our current moment of capitalism, like as

00:59:28.020 everything has been driven to become more optimized and more focused just on profit

00:59:32.600 mindedness, then the quality or like the function of it gradually degrades.

00:59:38.000 So if you're thinking about clothes, these sweaters are not worth hanging on to to donate

00:59:43.880 to your grandchildren whereas like i actually received a sweater of my grandmother's cashmere

00:59:49.140 sweater that was still in pristine like it was just beautiful and that's because the quality

00:59:57.380 was so high that it actually was worth keeping and passing down to another generation got it

01:00:02.860 this is a great word i'm glad to know that term now um i really get noelle's pendulum swing um

01:00:09.260 what she's talking about too much stuff from parents uh in our in in a reactionary way we're

01:00:14.300 not keeping as much um i am more of a minimalist i'm not a classic minimalist but i am more of one

01:00:22.160 because i'm exposed to so much excess every week i'm in yeah you know knee deep and people's stuff

01:00:29.340 not necessarily hoarding but sometimes but also just everybody like standard middle class too much

01:00:34.780 stuff i'm sure that my own minimalism is reactionary but i don't really care um in my

01:00:40.880 situation i mean i've learned so much right like i've learned like oh these are the things that

01:00:46.160 people regret getting rid of and these are things that no one ever cares about what what do people

01:00:51.280 regret getting rid of sometimes it's really funny things that like i i'll tell you a couple of mine

01:00:58.420 uh i donated a backpack that we never use and my husband was like hey where's that backpack

01:01:06.000 and i'm like i regretted it because it impacted him he was like oh i like it for this specific

01:01:11.720 person and it or purpose i mean and it just made me feel really bad that i wasn't you know aware

01:01:17.160 of that oh that you hadn't like asked him yeah because like i don't i know what he likes and

01:01:22.520 loves like i don't get rid of his precious things but that turned out was a little bit precious

01:01:27.700 I regret getting rid of some things like my stroller.

01:01:31.220 I had a really great stroller for my oldest son.

01:01:36.060 It was really hard back in 2005 to find a rear-facing stroller,

01:01:41.260 but I was very much an attachment-style mom, and I found one, and I loved it.

01:01:46.340 And then I started having more kids, and I was like,

01:01:48.140 I don't need this anymore because it just is one.

01:01:49.940 And I just didn't really think through the continued use for it

01:01:55.560 or that my sister might want to just it's nothing valuable but like you know how many years later

01:02:01.740 my son's 20 like I still remember that I mean I have very few regrets um but okay so the there's

01:02:09.580 these writers called the minimalists are you familiar with the minimalist um they have a

01:02:14.680 great concept called the 2020 rule because I think a lot of people are worried about just in case

01:02:19.160 items like just in case i need this thing so their their rubric for just in case is is called

01:02:26.100 a 2020 rule if it can be replaced in 20 minutes for less than 20 you can go ahead and move it

01:02:31.500 along to its next life whatever that might be and 90 of the time maybe even more you don't actually

01:02:37.600 ever need that thing but this is something that we have inherited from our parents like we might

01:02:42.760 need these twisty ties from the bread bag so we're going to keep them all when in fact no one ever

01:02:49.060 needs a twisty tie. And if you do, they're really easy to get. And that more will come into your

01:02:54.080 life or like how just more will come into your life. That's the thing. Exactly. Or you could

01:02:58.180 keep five. You could put them in the little like next to your Ziplocs just in case you have a bag

01:03:04.280 that needs a twisty tie. Right. Yep. That'd be fine. Yeah. I really feel this tension too. And

01:03:09.940 I do think it is like kind of being part of the sandwich, right? Like being an adult and being at

01:03:16.260 a point a later in life adult where you have accumulated stuff like you know I in some ways

01:03:22.560 I'm very lucky in that I've moved a lot and so every time I move just shedding stuff always and

01:03:29.620 it's because you're not going to want to pay to move no stuff you don't know yeah even just the

01:03:34.100 practice of boxing something up is very clarifying right like yes if you don't know what where which

01:03:41.600 box it goes into do you need it that's interesting yeah right and so often most people when they are

01:03:48.120 moving typically not always are moving to maybe a nicer house or a bigger house and like are you

01:03:56.240 want to when you want to bring this thing into your new pretty house really you know what I mean

01:04:01.060 or just like oh I don't know I but at the same time I think

01:04:06.660 you know we had another question was like i i feel like i'm not gonna have any photos of myself

01:04:13.260 and that i think is also coming from anxiety over digitization and like link rot which is the fact

01:04:21.220 that like a lot of things that we used to read and we used to post are now degrading and like

01:04:25.460 what like there are photos from a very important times in my life that are only saved on facebook

01:04:32.720 in like crappy degraded like small size stuff right yeah what's gonna happen with that or like

01:04:39.100 I call it the lost years of music and of like writing and that sort of thing that are on

01:04:43.980 laptops that never got digitized and like the stuff never carried over to now wherever all

01:04:49.740 of the stuff lives in like google docs or like in google photos and that sort of thing but there's

01:04:54.120 this giant gap and it's normal to fear I think that I'm going to feel sad about that space but

01:05:01.540 then the only thing that gives me solace there is that our relatives had so much less documentation

01:05:07.980 of self that's right and they still had very vivid memories like you know whenever I go out

01:05:14.040 and I'm like oh I wish I had my phone with me like I just want to take a picture this ex-boyfriend

01:05:18.740 used to always say to me like take a picture with your heart and it's so cheesy but like that like

01:05:23.560 make a memory instead of relying on the self-documentation or the stuff that reminds you

01:05:29.340 of that thing it's so true and even though we have you know digital photos and stuff like

01:05:35.600 is that also what we want to burden our kids with now thankfully we've got searchability but like

01:05:41.240 sometimes we don't need a picture of the sunset no it's just maybe we have it maybe we have it

01:05:47.640 just for a moment you know or yeah we don't post it but like maybe we also just have it and then

01:05:53.040 eventually delete it I don't know um I will say to you are you familiar with um do you know Laura

01:05:57.700 tremaine okay laura tremaine she's popular in my internet circle she's a los angeles-based

01:06:03.200 reader and writer um but she says she often says document your own history and i remember

01:06:10.640 specifically during the la fires was it last year now um that she said document your own history so

01:06:17.620 she will often take screenshots of her phone when like a news article pops up with a important

01:06:22.620 headline or like sometimes I screenshot meaningful texts from my kids because even though I'll have

01:06:29.960 the text I'm never I'm never gonna you might not always have the text right like things we might

01:06:35.400 you know well good point good point so like especially recently um with my kids being

01:06:41.340 teenagers and super interesting and funny I'll screenshot some stuff even including like some

01:06:46.560 meltdowns like oh I'm getting 50 texts that say mom mom mom mommy mommy because we got to document

01:06:53.940 our own history and um so there's there's some sort of balance but I'm a big photo deleter as

01:07:00.640 well so there's there's a lot to talk about here yeah that's a way to like have some digital hygiene

01:07:07.040 right some digital oh yeah keeping those spaces decluttered but at the same time remembering and

01:07:13.840 I love your point about like documenting the small things, whatever they are, that aren't like

01:07:18.160 necessarily like frame worthy per se, but are part of your life that will remind you of yourself.

01:07:25.160 Because I think that's part of what we are scared of is like somehow losing our memories of

01:07:30.720 ourselves without those anchor points, whether they're journals or other analog things. But

01:07:36.460 I agree. And I think to help with mom guilt too, like I, I, I want, I will look back at all my

01:07:42.800 mistakes. I know I will because I already do. And so if I have something that reminds me of my

01:07:48.620 awesome kid, she got a positive referral from a teacher screenshot, or I got a sweet text from my

01:07:53.540 son about something I was upset about screenshot. Yeah, I want I want to have some points to

01:07:58.480 remember. Yeah. And I feel like that's more valuable than a billion videos. Like you can

01:08:02.660 have some videos, but you don't need all of the videos. I know that for my dogs. I know dogs

01:08:08.420 aren't children, but I probably don't need as many photos of my dogs. Okay, so where can people find

01:08:15.840 you on the internet if they want to hear more from you, Tara? So probably the funnest place to find

01:08:20.860 me is on Instagram at house.peace. That's my business account. And I do lots of like before

01:08:26.620 and after pictures and, you know, tips and tricks. My personal account is Tara B. Brimmer that I talk

01:08:33.060 about my kids being in band a lot. What do they play? I've got a trumpet, a percussionist and a

01:08:41.440 flute player. Amazing. A flautist. A flautist. He's the flautist in college band. Plays piccolo

01:08:47.460 actually. And then I have a newsletter that you can find via my IG. Look for that and sign up for

01:08:54.820 that. Amazing. Thank you so much for joining me. This was really fun. Thank you so much. I loved it.

01:09:03.060 thanks for listening to the culture study podcast today paid subscribers got a bonus

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01:10:30.260 You

Culture Study Podcast - May 06, 2026

What Do We Do With All This STUFF？？

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