There’s a memory box for each of my two children in the loft, carefully labelled and filled with genuinely special keepsakes – tags from their time in hospital, nursery and school photos and a highly curated selection of their artwork. Not many. Just the ones that mean something or were so unintentionally hilarious, I can’t bear to part with them.
The rest? They mostly end up in the recycling.
If I kept every picture my kids drew, in particular, my mini-Picasso who can work his way through a pad of paper like he’s on commission from Crayola, we’d have to move out and let the artwork live in the house.
I used to keep it all. I had a folder, which turned into a box, which turned into a bigger box, which became a bag-for-life. I stuck rockets on the fridge and rainbows, monsters and dinosaurs on all the kitchen cupboards, like the devoted parent I am, rotating them with reverence – until I ran out of Blue Tack, cupboard doors and fridge.
Eventually, I cracked, and now I operate a much tighter system. One piece might get a prime spot on the fridge. One might make it to the memory box if it’s genuinely charming (or so awful it’s brilliant).
It’s not heartless, it’s necessary. Modern parenting is full of emotional landmines and throwing away your children’s artwork is one of them. What if they notice? What if they ask for it months down the line? What if 20 years from now they are sitting on a therapist’s couch sobbing, “It all started when Mum threw away my pasta spaceship?”
But the truth is, they won’t. And even if they do, often they don’t remember what it looked like, because, let’s be honest, they don’t remember drawing half of it either. On the rare occasion my kids have asked for a specific piece, I blame my husband’s exceptional tidying skills.
I feel that we are parenting in an age of guilt-hoarding. Every scribble, every pasta necklace, every vaguely horrifying portrait of Mummy with no clothes on (which spent a term on the classroom wall first) is kept, just in case. But just in case what, exactly?
square KIRSTY KETLEY
I've had to 'blacklist' kids from my house - it's all down to bad parenting
Read MoreI love my children dearly. I admire their creativity, and of course, I would much rather they are being creative with pen and paper than glued to a screen, but I can’t pretend that every single squiggle is a masterpiece. Some have just been lines. Some have been entirely blank, apart from a tiny bit of crayon in one corner.
I firmly believe that not everything has to be saved. Some things are just for the moment. And that’s OK. You see, keeping absolutely everything isn’t always about the kids, let’s be honest. Sometimes it’s about us. The pressure we feel to be the kind of parent who cherishes every moment and every doodle, so we don’t cause damage years down the line. However, it’s really not necessary.
Parenting is cluttered enough, so we don’t need the guilt of a growing archive of children’s artwork on top. We feel we have to be sentimental, to preserve their childhoods, but sometimes I choose to preserve my own sanity instead.
So no, I don’t feel bad about it. Because what I’m really doing is modelling something useful. My kids are learning to develop emotional resilience. They are learning that memories aren’t in things, they’re in experiences and they are learning that they don’t need loads of stuff to be happy.
I don’t need 14 identical versions of “Mummy with eyes like lopsided dinner plates”, to know how much I’m loved. One is enough. Maybe two, if the second one actually looks like me.
Kirsty Ketley is a parenting consultant and freelance writer
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