When my kids’ dad died more than 12 years ago, I worried about making sure that the kids would turn out normal — being raised by just me. Then my hubby came along and set us all straight.
Over the years, I’ve learned that normal is relative. The kids are pretty normal, but I see some hoarding tendencies that worry me. My oldest son loves hats. Although he claims to only have seven baseball caps, and I’m not counting. He also collects water bottles in his car, unintentionally, I think. My husband calls his car a recycling project.
My daughter has a collection of shoes that is on the hoarder side. I mean some of them are from high school. She graduated six years ago. My youngest also works the shoe gig. He has always been a stylish child. You have to admire a kid who asks if his shoes match his outfit.
The shoe thing is in the genes — my mom’s. She had a closet full of shoes — the entire top shelf of a giant linen closet was stacked to the ceiling with her shoes — neatly boxed. I never saw her wear any of them. She wore the ones in her own closet. It was kind of a collection.
Mom had a pair of blue satin shoes she got when I was born. They were still neatly boxed in that closet 30 years later when she died. Then, I took them home and kept them for another 10 years. OK maybe there is a little hoarder in all of us, but if I had kept them, they would be designer and vintage by now.
Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa.
From my experience, I have come across both. But the best way to tell the difference is the amount of control the items have over you. A collection is treasured and stored (neat or not) and hoarding is just keeping. I know I have done both. My “collection” is bottle tops. I kept planning on doing something with them. Three containers later (i will not mention the number of years), I have finally did my project! In both hoarding and collecting, the items are important to the person having both memories and emotions attached to the items,holding on to the past. Facing or dealing with these emotions are hard for the hoarder. Most of the time, the hoarding started after a traumatic event. Then each item becomes important and they cannot let it go for fear of more loss. Everyone keeps some kind of memento of our past that has personal history attached to it; yearbooks, wedding dress or good luck bowling shoes. It is when it over runs your life and holds you back that the items take over. Purging these items are very difficult but freeing. I have helped people regain their lives and confidence. I run a organizing business and enjoy bringing peace back to peoples lives.