Throwing out things the kids have outgrown should be easy, right?

Another summer has ended. The kids have had adventures, learnt new things, met new people, even found new and improved ways to enrage their parents. They’ve also grown older. My daughter is starting kindergarten and my son has just started leaping from his crib, so it’s time to update their room. We’ve decided on a bunk bed, but when I equip my husband with a measuring tape and follow him into their room, his shoulders begin to shake as he is overcome by the crippling tears of a man who has never been able to accept the audacity of the passing of time and its effect on our children. This is a job for me. I gently lead my weeping husband out and tell him that I’ll handle the inevitability of our children maturing. 

Right. Here we go. I measure where the bed will go. Space will now be limited, so in lieu of buying new furniture for their things, we could get rid of some of them. This should be easy enough, I foolishly tell myself, not yet knowing the raw emotional journey this project will set me on.  

I sit on the floor and begin going through books. Board books will be easy to purge I think, seeing as my kids have definitely outgrown them. I never would have thought that maybe I had not. I manage to put aside the ones in pristine condition, the ones that have obviously never been loved enough to chew or drool on. Then I find the torn ones. It’s hard for chubby little hands to tear up a board book, so I know that these have seen some unparalleled toddler action. These are the ones I used to read to them in the throes of sleep deprivation, the ones that would fill me with dread when I saw them. But now that my babies are older, that feeling has softened to wistfulness. Where has the time gone? OK, so maybe books later. 

Let’s do toys. The plastic ones that I swore I would never buy since we were going to be an eco-friendly family thriving on wood and plant-based toys and activities. Sure, sure. Once I discovered the brightly glowing plastic rattle that hypnotised my daughter long enough for me to shower without interruption, all bets were off. And here it is on a shelf. My husband and I named this rattle Freddle in our delirium of new parenthood, thinking it humorous. My kids surely don’t even acknowledge its presence. I cannot part with it.  

Clothes. Clothes should be simple. I can’t possibly justify keeping clothes that don’t fit them any more, right? Wrong. I start in their closet, gently handling their old coats, each one eliciting a different emotion with every memory it triggers. This is the outfit she wore when she had her first day of pre-K. This is the snowsuit he wore the first time he faceplanted in a drift. This is — oh, this is the one my mother kept from my childhood; the one that my son lived in for the second year of his life: a red H&M Mickey Mouse bomber jacket from the 1980s. Practically an antique now. An heirloom, if you will. So I must hold on to it so that future generations can remember us and H&M. 

Suddenly I’m reminded that I put a box in the closet under the stairs over a year ago with other kid paraphernalia that I meant to go through, but forgot about. I open the door and pull it out. This is a mistake. The first thing I find is my old Polly Pocket from the 1990s that my mother sent over for the kids but which I had deemed too precious for their destructive fingers. It’s vintage, they don’t get it. Under it I find my old Where’s Wally? books that my kids were too rough with at the time. But they’re older now, maybe they can respectfully find him? I bring the box of relics into their room. 

“Wait, now you’re adding things?” I close the door to muffle out my husband’s completely correct observation. I find my old stuffed toys, the orca hand puppet, the fancy Harrods bear that I was given by a long-forgotten fancy friend. I place it next to my son’s stuffed dragon that he named dinosaur because he’s either a comedic genius or an idiot — but more likely just three years old. 

I make a home for these ancient treasures. My mother held on to all these pieces of my childhood in her tiny flat and here I am trying to discard my own children’s. What was I thinking? My husband enters the room I thought I had barricaded, and finds me on the floor, drunk on nostalgia. I guess this isn’t a job for me after all.

Find out about our latest stories first — follow @FTProperty on X or @ft_houseandhome on Instagram