Nobody likes the pandemic. Yet it has forced us to take a hard look at our lives and try to make the best of things. That includes the holidays where we might not be with as many people as in years past. Those “intimate” gatherings can be the impetus for more meaningful conversations.
Like your senior parents downsizing.
This starts a chain reaction of conversations. Some family members may not like the family home being sold. Others may be upset if Mom and Dad are moving further away. Yet there’s one conversation that’s bound to upset somebody, parents or adult children:
What happens to Mom and Dad’s things?
Many senior parents keep items like –books, photographs, furniture, silver and crystal, China, sewing machines, slide projectors, etc. with the idea of passing those things onto their kids. It’s a beautiful thought with one small yet important flaw:
The “kids” might not want those items.
This could come as a surprise for some senior parents. Why wouldn’t they want your treasured heirlooms? Don’t they want to remember me and pass it along to their children?
Maybe.
Yet if you’re a senior parent, you might want to prepare yourself for a no.
Or not.
Still, with a smaller gathering for the holidays this year, in theory, it might be the perfect time to start some of these conversations.
You can see who wants what, if anything.
Part of that discussion can be a stroll down memory lane and why that particular item is treasured. That can lead to any number of conversations about good times and sweet days of yesteryear.
A copywriter friend of mine used to tell me about his father the engineer and his slide shows. Engineers were big on taking slides for work. Consequently, all the family photos were slides as well. In fact, his father’s slide shows were part of the family lore, happy and pleasant in retrospect, no matter how he felt while sitting through carousel after carousel.
To my friend’s parents’ credit, they realized none of their three children would want the slide projector. Instead, they had the slides digitized and put into the cloud. Each child received a CD of the slides with their pictures for their 50th birthday. Today, you could so something similar by housing those photos in the cloud.
The point of the story is that parents have to prepare for the fact that their adult children and/or grandchildren will not want their cherished items. Yet it’s worth having that discussion. What better time than the holidays when families will be together in smaller groups?
If you are looking for a plan B should your parents not know what to do with their heirlooms, this Forbes article offers a number of great suggestions. Check it out by clicking on the button below.
If you need help downsizing your home, please give me a call at 508-246-6120 or drop a line.
