My Daughters Do Not Want Their Scrapbooks! GASP

Have any of you heard from your children or someone you've spent TWENTY YEARS creating for that they just want the pictures and not their scrapbooks ( which I consider to be their biographies) ? What do I do with the like 100 albums now??? The obvious answer would be for me to keep them, but I am getting older and downsizing and there is no one left in my family to pass them along to.

My thoughts on this is they don't want them now but time and circumstances may change their minds later on as they get older. I don't have kids or siblings or even any close relatives so what happens to my precious albums has always been on the back of my mind. I even thought that if I should ever lose my home, the only things in my shopping cart would be my albums and cats. My advice is to keep creating for yourself, enjoy the process, love the memories and what happens happens. One of my dear friends has no interest in family photos and memorabilia but her pre-teen kid is obsessed with grandma's pictures and learning about family history. My other friend actually buys (really old) photo albums at auctions because she likes the pictures and looking at what was going on back in the day.

If you literally have 100 albums, that's probably overwhelming to them too, esp if they're young adults. This is a digital age for the younger crowd. You may want to actually consider photos of your pages, and give them a disc of the album pages, but discs don't live forever either. I agree with the above, that they just may not be ready yet, but will want them when they're older.

Deb, I'm thinking the same about what would I do with my albums when I downsize. Neither of my kids are ready for nor do they want the albums but they are still in their nomad 20's. I think once they have permanent homes and families (and we are elderly), it will mean a little more. Pretty sure my son will take most of them. Not sure about DD (even though she helped me make them at one time). I do create for them and for me and for us but we never know. If you enjoy making them, keep doing it.

Thanks Doreen! I like what you are saying about scrapbooking for ME. I never had pics growing up, unless it was a school pic or random photo taken by a relative so I thought my kids would appreciate having as many pics as possible and to use scrapbooking to tell their stories.

Thanks Lis,

Hi Jess, yes I literally do. It is out of hand I suppose. You are so right on about the kids being part of the dig age and that is the way they like it. They do live a lot more simply since all they want to have is a computer and phone lol!

I've heard from an antique dealer just last year, that the younger crowd just doesn't want stuff,and that antique dealers will be a thing of the past if the trend continues. We appreciate our grandparent's "stuff", but the Gen Y and Z age groups are not interested in collecting.... hopefully, there will be a yet to that.

I do enjoy making albums so I will keep creating with the hope that my girls 15 and 24 will change their minds. I want to move so I have to start the downsizing before it's too hard for me later in life. My twin keeps reminding me how my kids will not want to go thru my stuff when I'm gone. I know because I did all of it for my parents. It's hard to do. I guess I'll keep creating and make the transition of always making digital copies.

Wow that is very interesting to hear the antique dealer's thoughts. I bet he or she is right that they'll fade out. Everything seems too. Yep Y and Z only think about themselves as a whole so keep grandpa's things mean nothing to them. So sad!

I agree Lisan2cats completely. When my son first moved away and was 20, he was just in that, I am away from my parents and don't want to be anything like them-LOL!! 5 years later, and having been out on his own and having found out just how good he had it, he now comes home quit often and one of the things he loves, is to look through old photo albums, his scrapbook albums I made for him and we watched our family movies this past Christmas and he said it was the best gift ever Time changes us all, and that may be all that your children need, but even if they don't, just like some of the others say, you did it for yourself, found joy doing it, so it was never a waste

OMGoodness! I would be HORRIFIED if my children didn't want my precious scrapbooks. Originally I started making them just for me and then when my DD (oldest of 2) graduated from high school I made three 12" x 12" scrapbooks for her with school portraits, report cards, some of their artwork, event programs, field trips I chaperoned, etc. to display at her Graduation open house. When she bought her first home 3 years ago she asked to take them. I was thrilled! So now I make some for me, and some for each of my children. My DS is only 21 so he really could care less what happens with his. I guess if they want to pitch them when I'm dead and gone, I'll never know.

What program do you use? I used to have the Creative Memories one but that computer has long since died and, with it, the software. Still have a bazillion digi-papers and ephemera but haven't found a software product that can do all the neat mixed media looks, etc. (Ok, tbh, I haven't really looked but am sort of interested in getting one. But will probably never stop playing with real paper, inks, and glue!)

I suppose, too, at some point, you could go through and downsize a bit by getting rid of layouts that use duplicate photos (I speak for myself and my 997972345927349573974957 cat photos); pulling out layouts that aren't "the greatest" (and edging them closer to the bin); or saving only 36 layouts (3/month) for each year. I've actually started going through my earlier albums (where the cheap tape I used is failing) and being brutal with myself - discarding photos that are out of focus, keeping only up to 3 or 4 pics per event/memory, etc. The fun part is I get to redo some of the layouts that are falling apart (though I do try to keep most of the design elements since I don't want to take away from my original creative process). I find myself getting lost for hours in my albums. With all of these challenges, I have to be honest, not all of the LOs go in my "forever" albums. Some end up in my - This is What I Love Right Now album, which is my rotating book. I have a finite number of pages and I rotate out layouts and toss (taking off any special embellie). I have all of the layouts posted on SB (and on the Cloud) so I don't miss them taking up space.

I should definitely keep this in mind!!!

Yep never will regret the time I put into these pages! Y'all are right, time might just be all they need. Then again I'll keep making digital copies and see if that suits them better.

What a super perfect plan you came up with! I need to look into doing it that way. So your scrapbook page can be made using all of the scrapbook stuff I love then send a pic of it to a Shutterfly account and create a digital book using those layouts?

I get it! Horrified! At the same time I know they don't want to bulk of it all. As much fun as it has been creating these books and books and books, sometimes I wish I had not done every day pics. It would've cut down on bulk.

Nothing is forever, not even albums :-) Being childless myself, I fully expect all of mine to end up in the landfill when I pop my clogs. No problem -- I do this stuff for myself.

I never really bought into the "do it so your children will remember" thing, so I have no problem if my kids throw away all the family scrapbooks when I'm dead! That said, I do have a baby album and a school album for each one that I hope they will keep. My youngest son now loves looking through our family albums, even the ones of the years before he was part of our family, so at least two of us enjoy them. And I love pulling out albums that feature my 14 year old's toddler photos and showing them to his girlfriend - LOL!

Lol at how many cat pages you have, me too... can't forget my dogs too! Ok I'm slowly embracing the idea of ditching earlier or later not so amazing pages. I'll be trying th o edge them towards the trash can. Hate even saying it, but they absolutely take up too much space!

That's a new phrase for me”pop my clogs”... Danish?

Oh I bet your son loves that haha! I'm glad there are g th hose loving to look. Baby and school are so important so I hope your kids keep them one day too.