Baby Boomers Buy Shit Just to Buy Shit
An old heavy leather sofa sits in a garage in Fairfax Station waiting for a new abode. The possessor, a infant boomer, tried to pass it on to her children but none showed interest (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Mail service)
A seismic shift of stuff is underway in homes all over America.
Members of the generation that once embraced sexual practice, drugs and rock-and-whorl are trying to offload their place settings for 12, family photo albums and leather sectionals.
Their offspring don't desire them.
Every bit baby boomers, born betwixt 1946 and 1964, start cleaning out attics and basements, many are discovering that millennials, born between 1980 and 2000, are not and so interested in the lifestyle trappings or cornball memorabilia they were so lovingly raised with.
Thank you, Mom, but I really tin't use that eight-pes dining tabular array or your rex-size headboard.
Josh and Kelly Phillips rent a 700-foursquare-pes apartment in Shaw, which they keep gratis of clutter. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)
Whether becoming empty nesters, downsizing or just finally embracing the decluttering movement, boomers are taking a good close await at the things they take spent their life collecting. Sale houses, consignment stores and thrift shops are flooded with trade, much of it made of chocolate-brown wood. Downsizing experts and professional organizers are comforting parents whose children appear to have lost any sentimental attachment to their adorable baby shoes and family unit heirloom quilts.
To make matters worse, young adults don't seem to want their own higher textbooks, sports trophies or T-shirt collections, still entombed in plastic containers at their parents' homes.
The 20- and 30-somethings don't appear to be defined past their possessions, other than their latest-generation cellphones.
[Eight ways millennials are different from their parents]
"Millennials are living a more transient life in cities. They are trying to find stable jobs and paying off loans," says Scott Roewer, 41, a Washington professional person organizer whose business is the Organizing Agency. "They are living their life digitally through Instagram and Facebook and YouTube, and that'due south how they are capturing their moments. Their whole life is on a calculator; they don't need a shoebox full of greeting cards."
Many millennials raised in the collect-'em-all culture (recall McDonald's Happy Meal toys and Beanie Babies) at present adopt to live simpler lives with less stuff in smaller downtown spaces, far from the suburban homes with fussy window treatments and formal dining rooms that they grew upwards in.
The desire of many millennials to stay in cities rather than moving to the suburbs or rural areas is instigating a rewrite of the American dream. According to the 2014 Nielsen report "Millennials: Breaking the Myths," 62 per centum of millennials prefer to live in the type of mixed-use communities institute in urban centers where they can live near shopping, restaurants and piece of work. And 40 percent say they would want to live there in the futurity.
Take Kelly and Josh Phillips, who rent a 700-square-foot apartment in the Commune's Shaw neighborhood. The couple frequently sells things on Craigslist and calls an Uber instead of owning a car. "My parents are ever trying to give us stuff," says Kelly Phillips, 29, a real manor marketer. "It'south stuff like bunches of sometime photos and documents, erstwhile bowls or cocktail glasses. We detest clutter. Nosotros would rather spend coin on experiences."
Her husband agrees. "I consider myself a digital hoarder," says Josh Phillips, 33, who is opening a Oaxacan eatery, Espita Mezcaleria, this fall in Shaw. "If I can't store my memories of something in a computer, I'chiliad probably not going to go on them effectually."
Stephanie Kenyon, 60, the owner of Sloans & Kenyon Auctioneers and Appraisers in Chevy Chase, says the market is flooded with boomer rejects. "Hardly a day goes by that nosotros don't get calls from people who desire to sell a large dining room prepare or chamber suite because nobody in the family wants it. Millennials don't want dark-brown article of furniture, rocking chairs or silverish-plated tea sets. Millennials don't polish argent." The formal piece of furniture is often sold at bargain prices, or if it's not in good shape, it might get directly to the dump.
"Baby boomers were collectors," says Elizabeth Wainstein, l, owner and president of Potomack Visitor Auctioneers in Alexandria, where lots of unwanted family treasures finish up being sold. "They collected High german porcelains or American pottery. It was a passion, and they spent their time on the thrill of the hunt." She says younger people aren't really that interested in filling shelves.
Kenyon says the under-35 gear up has always had eBay to find exactly what they wanted and aren't as nostalgic for sometime decades.
Dominique Fierro, 33, a photographer and stylist who rents a 900-square-foot condo in Bethesda with her hubby, Titou, 33, a personal trainer, is always fending off offers. "My family is always trying to give me stuff," Fierro says. Every couple of months, she cleans out her closets and gives her ain things away either to charities or to cousins. "I don't want formal entertaining stuff. I have a set of white and a set up of blue plates. I don't desire my parents' silver that you have to paw-wash."
Millennials similar to stick to their personal design aesthetic. "Millennials are pattern-conscious, informed consumers. They bring a lot more confidence to how they want their homes to look," says Newell Turner, 53, editorial director of the Hearst Design Group. "They demand to have reasons for why they are doing something. They are not just taking a bed to inherit it. It has to take an important meaning for them or fit in with an aesthetic they are building for themselves."
Tyler Whitmore, 58, owner of Tyler Whitmore Interiors in Bethesda, consults on staging and downsizing. "Eight times out of x, kids don't want the parents' furniture or boxes of letters or scrapbooks," she says. "That'due south a hard thing to come up to grips with, and at outset parents are insulted. It can create hurt feelings. Only it's not that they don't beloved you. They don't dear your furniture."
Kenyon says that boomers may exist a bit envious of their offspring as they look to shed things and have more freedom to travel.
Roewer frequently finds himself counseling boomers as he helps them clear out. Roewer was built-in in 1973, which makes him part of Generation 10. He says his ain parents try to give him items for his 750-square-foot home.
"When my parents downsized from iv,500 square feet to 1,100, they sent me four boxes of stuff. It was things like cards from people I no longer knew, a paper plate with the face of a lion I had glued yarn around and my christening outfit. I capeesh my mom taking care of this stuff, but I really don't want information technology." (He is keeping his Cub Sentry Pinewood Derby cars.)
Karen Hammerman, 52, one of Roewer's clients, has iii sons ages 17 to 24. She and her husband, Ira, live in a v-bedroom business firm in Rockville. "Millennials have stuff on discs and flash drives," she says. "I don't remember my sons are going to desire my walnut table, eight chairs and buffet. We will downsize possibly in five years, and I volition either sell this stuff or give it away."
Hammerman has 3 large zip-superlative bags full of memories gear up aside, one for each son. But as Roewer told her, she shouldn't exist insulted if they don't desire their first-grade drawings or boxes with seashells glued to them.
"They made these things and gave them to you and you lot enjoyed them," Roewer says. "The gift-giving cycle is now complete."
Find more than on this here:
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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/boomers-unwanted-inheritance/2015/03/27/0e75ff6e-45c4-11e4-b437-1a7368204804_story.html
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