<p>Why is it that my young 20-something offspring, living in different states, think that my home mailing address is supposed to be the one they use every time they are asked for their "permanent" address? I get their junk mail, their magazines, their bank statements, their jury summonses, their medical bills, their tax notices... everything else imaginable. Then I've got to sort through to figure out what's junk and what needs to be sent on.....</p>
<p>And while I'm at it.... where is it written that my house is supposed to be a free lifetime storage facility for all of their stuff? I couldn't use their respective bedrooms for anything else if I wanted to, what with all of their accumulated possessions.</p>
<p>OMG, can I just ditto the rant. It’s so bad here that when one comes to visit he sleeps in the guest room because his room is really just an extension of the local U Store It facility…</p>
<p>I’ll third that. I’m tired of bundling up bank statements and remembering to hand them over when I see them. And the stuff…don’t get me started. My D just tells me to throw out whatever, but I know that if/when I do, there’ll be howls of outrage when something REALLY IMPORTANT AND MEANINGFUL is gone.</p>
<p>But what I really don’t get is why their universities send their mail to their home addresses, not their school addresses?!! They each have campus mailboxes.</p>
<p>Um…they’re your kids…shouldn’t they think of your house as their home? Mi closet es su closet?</p>
<p>Speaking from underneath my other hat as college prof: if they get mail from the school, please text them or email them and let them know. We’re being overwhelmed with late applications to our honor society because Mom & Dad never told the kid that a letter from the department was sitting on the dining room table waiting for them. For a month.</p>
<p>S2’s new bank account is free if he does everything online. Works for me.</p>
<p>We actually want the official stuff to come to the house – changing things over for summer sublets and a different dorm every year is a big pain in the ^%$#. If something comes in the mail and it looks important, I ask the relevant S if he wants me to open it or forward it. So far, it’s been “open it, mom, I don’t care if you see it.” S2’s Selective Service letter arrived just after he left. That’s one of those things that need to be in the Permanent File.</p>
<p>I will say that it was a real pain the the tush to get W-2s when they were sent to S1’s summer dorm address. He is STILL waiting for that tax refund! </p>
<p>As for the rest of their junk, well, it gives them a reason to come home periodically. :)</p>
<p>My 80 year old mother sold her house a few years ago and had to explain to the realtor why there were enough wedding dresses and bridesmaids dresses in the hall closet to outfit a reality show (like, “1980’s bridal horror hour”.) I confess that my siblings and I didn’t want any of them enough to actually drive there and take them home with us (hence their parking space for the last 30 years) but it was very unsettling to think of them gone.</p>
<p>But off they went to Goodwill.</p>
<p>If my experience is typical, your kids will consider your mailbox “home” until the first AARP mailing, with their names but your address, shows up!</p>
<p>Of course, Williamsdad, but I think stradmom was referencing kids who are still in college (her comments about school mail coming home.) The OP’s kids are out of school, functioning adults who live in different states from her. I think we all agree that we wouldn’t let them go homeless, but OTOH, there comes a time when they might take ownership of their stuff and their mail.</p>
<p>I also don’t think she was being too serious about it. (I myself made the mistake of leaving my stuff in my mom’s basement storage–she had sold the house I grew up in, so I had no “room” to leave stuff in–and was dismayed to find that the old cat with kidney problems had rendered most of my college papers and books unusable, alas.) </p>
<p>Hmm, maybe I should threaten my adult kids with an old cat living in their old rooms.</p>
<p>Wow, we don’t really have this problem. Neither my husband nor I really stored a lot of stuff with our parents, so we didn’t expect that our kids would store tons of stuff in our house. Have you seen Toy Story 3? Our house was like that with each child going off to college, but we said, “You can store 2 boxes, and once you’ve graduated, we’ll send you the two boxes.” It worked out really well!</p>
<p>I suppose it is technically against some law to open our adult children’s mail but like many others I do it to not save/send everything. I used to just pile up probable junk mail for a visit home but the pile was ignored so I go through all mail. Don’t blame the school- the student has opportunities to give an address. My son has been told he might want to make his apt address his permanent address (he votes there) so I don’t know what is sent to him. He must not mind the mother filter yet. Most school stuff is done online. They now do billing notices entirely online- the school allows students to send others billing information with a password so we parents can pay (remember those privacy laws)- this is one way of knowing son did actually register for fulltime status. House is on the market. Hopefully son will get to his closet before he needs to do it for our move (which could be another year or more the way the local market is). I already did a first pass- I refuse to save everything by default but he needs to make decisions. Telling son to go through his stuff on vacation doesn’t work- the last time I put kid toys and other stuff I would get rid of in another room and told him to go through it or it would be gone after he left. He probably glanced at the piles and maybe looked further a bit, but Mom got to decide after he left (and haul stuff to the curb or Goodwill). Round 2 has been pending for many months.</p>
<p>Garland:
For several reasons, I have always moved around a lot after I first left home. I never really knew where I would be living six months into the future. I used my parents’ home address for well over 20 years, because I knew my mother would never move, and because it would have been impossible for me to remember all the people and institutions to notify every time I changed my address. Several very important letters arrived to my parents’ mailbox during that time. One of those letters, from the US embassy, literally changed, and possibly saved, my life. Maybe it’s a cultural thing (although my mother was American,) but I can’t imagine my parents objecting to my mail. I know my mother liked it, and I think my father still does; it gives him an excuse to call and tell me about important-looking letters. My brother and I always knew our home was our home, no matter how long we hadn’t lived there, and our rooms were kept as if we still slept there every night. I used my closet to keep important documents and irreplaceable possessions safe until my Mom died, and I still remember how sad I was when I took them from my room.
When my mother died, I knew that one of the two people in the whole world that I could really, positively, no-doubt-about-it COUNT on, was gone forever. I consider it my duty as a father to make my children know and feel that they can count on me the same way. If they use their rooms to store things, or if they use my mailing address (unlikely, since I still move around a lot,) I will take it as a huge compliment.</p>
<p>I’m glad you guys like to feel needed… but some of what I’m getting here has serious legal & monetary consequences to my kids, often attached to the address – such as getting summoned for jury duty in my county or receiving a notice of a state income tax assessment, in my state. They don’t live here, but the local authorities don’t know that, because they put my address on their tax returns and haven’t updated DMV records.</p>
<p>When I left home, of course I left a ton of stuff. I was out of college, lived across state and was married with two kids. I always thought there would be time to get it. My dad retired sooner than expected and they decided to move…my mom ditched all my high school memorabilia (trophies, yearbooks etc), sold my original Barbie doll collection for pennies at garage sale, and I never ever saw my college diploma which was shipped to them. I suggest to kids that they get what they want as soon as they can…or it may someday be gone.</p>
<p>I liked the stories from parents who stored things with their own parents and felt close because of that attachment. But I’d just like to reassure new empty-nesters that if you ask your kids to take charge of their own stuff and their own mail, you can still have a great relationship! My dad is now 84, and he and I have met for lunch together once a month for the past 20 years or so (we live about 200 miles apart). When my mom was alive, she and I also got together regularly and stayed in touch. I never stored anything with either of them after leaving college, and I never had any mail directed to their residences.</p>