Cindi Copeland can’t bear the thought of parting with the cedar hope chest her grandmother received as an engagement gift in the 1930s. She even held on to the $100 moth-insurance certificate, which expired more than 75 years ago.
She cherishes the Blue Garland china her mother acquired with grocery stamps, though it has never made its way to the dining room table. And she’s just as fond of the nearly 1,000 slides from her grandfather’s vacation in Europe a half-century ago.
Too bad her sons don’t feel the same way.
As the oldest of her four siblings, Copeland, 54, is the family’s memory keeper. Heirlooms that once belonged to her parents and grandparents are displayed throughout her Warrenville, Ill., home, alongside mementos of her own and several from her husband’s side of the family.
Copeland’s sons, ages 19 and 25, have expressed little or no interest in her collection. “I feel a connection to it because I know the stories behind it,” she said. “I’ve tried to tell my boys so they will care. But when I was their age, I didn’t care either.”
Passing down heirlooms has long been tradition. But Copeland and many other baby boomers fear their children and grandchildren will end up tossing the family treasures.
“A lot of young people are so transient; they don’t stay anywhere very long,” said Copeland, whose sons live at home. “They don’t want to be tied down to family heirlooms that don’t mean anything to them.”
Julie Hall, a North Carolina liquidation appraiser known as the Estate Lady, said this has become a dilemma for a growing number of middle-age people: Often what they consider to be jewels, their children and grandchildren see as junk.
“Though they have the best intentions, boomers have a tendency to keep too much stuff for subsequent generations, though the kids have already told them they don’t want anything,” said Hall, author of the book The Boomer Burden: Dealing With Your Parents’ Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff.
“They end up setting those kids up for a burden as they age and pass away. So in the children’s haste to get rid of it, it goes into a family yard sale for $10,” she said.
As their parents die, baby boomers from 48 to 66 are expected to be on the receiving end of the largest transfer of wealth in U.S. history: $8.4 trillion, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
But boomers have a different idea about what’s important than their elders, who lived through the Great Depression and spent their lives accumulating money and material things that they could leave to their children.
A study by the investment firm U.S. Trust found that fewer than half of wealthy boomers say leaving their children a monetary inheritance is a priority. According to another study by Allianz Life Insurance Co., 86 percent of boomers said inheriting family stories and traditions is more important than inheriting money.
They are more likely to place value on things that have passed down through the family, Hall said.
“Baby boomers have to deal with so much stuff because the previous generation — the Depression generation — did not deal with their parents’ stuff. Those from the Depression era felt like they were leaving their children a legacy,” said Hall, who owns an estate sale and liquidating business in Charlotte, N.C. “And the boomers absorbed it all.”
Their homes are bursting at the seams with their own collections, from Beatles albums to Christmas tree ornaments. When their parents die, boomers dutifully step up to provide a new home. Each piece has a story, and the memory keepers know it well.
But boomers’ children, who largely range in age from their 20s to early 40s, often aren’t as independent as their parents were. Those younger than 30 are much slower to start a career and buy a house, said Paul Taylor, executive vice president at Pew Research Center. About 40 percent live with their parents.
“Millennials are much more likely to be living with mom and dad in their early 20s and 30s, more so than previous generations,” said Taylor, who has done extensive research on generational traits. “It’s hard to figure out where heirlooms fit in when so much of where millennials find their identity is in gadgets.”
It’s unlikely they would have any use for great-grandmother’s silver flatware because it requires too much work to keep it polished. They don’t want the delicate china because they can’t throw it in the dishwasher, and they’d never consider decorating their living room around a Queen Anne settee.
Some seem to evaluate potential heirlooms for what they are, rather than where they came from.
“I’ve never really felt like my parents were at an age where I have to worry about who’s getting what,” said Copeland’s 19-year-old son Scott. “There’s not anything I’ve been craving. I think the chest is really nice. It smells, but I might take that. I don’t know how I’d feel about the Christmas ornaments, though.”
Some boomers are starting to downsize in an effort to make their own lives less cumbersome. When Stephen Thompson’s parents died several years ago, he ended up with the remnants of their lives, including heirlooms that had passed to his mother from her mother. He sold some on consignment, but the bulk of it landed in the basement of his Wilmette home.
He made room in the house for some furniture, his mother’s Hummel collection, and a bookshelf and sewing kit his father built. Last year, he decided to start clearing things out.
His two daughters, ages 30 and 27, already have told him they aren’t interested in any of it.
“My parents were products of the Depression, and they held on to everything. Both of them were only children, so everything funneled through them,” said Thompson, a 59-year-old college professor. “I don’t want to leave my kids with the same mess my parents left me.”