What to do with childhood stuff?

If my girlfriend finds out I said this, she'll kill me:

keep what has strong sentimental value, throw the rest out. But I don't keep things unless there's a STRONG sentimental value, and then I end up throwing it out after a couple of years anyway.

My girlfriend keeps almost everything. She'd say to pack the things you don't want to display back up and keep them forever.

What are YOU comfortable with? If need be, re-open the boxes every year or two and re-evaluate the value of the contents.

And that probably doesn't help in the least. 

I would love to see some stuff from my grandparents' childhood...or even their parents...how cool would that be?  That's my rationale for keeping some stuff around.

I appreciate everyone's perspective.  If I had kids I might feel differently, but without anyone to give the stuff too... I think I imagined I'd have a daughter who might want the little dolls from my grandparents trips to other countries, etc. 

Good points - especially the bolded!

If your nieces are too old or not interested in your old dolls, why not give them to someone who would love and play with them? Think of the ending of Toy Story 3 - if they do not have an intrinsic value, surely somewhere there are kids who would want to play with them?

Mrs. gearboyo and I are not very sentimental about things. Neither are our girls. We had over the years accumulated literally thousands of dollars worth of kids books, which we ended up mostly giving away to the local libraries, so they could be read by other kids (either as part of the library's collection, or to be sold at library fundraisers). I like to think of the kids out there now who are getting to discover the books my kids loved.

We kept a few things - particular favorites, or signed-by-the-author - but for the most part, I think it is better that they have new homes rather than just aging out in our attic or basement until we die and someone throws them unread again into a landfill.

I ended up boxing my official school stuff (report cards, etc) and a small collection of keepsakes.  It amounted to a medium sized plastic box.

The dolls (Cabbage Patch,Barbie, etc) I am less sentimental about.  Whatever the nieces don't want will go to Goodwill.  I was more worried about the small gifts from international travel from grandparents or the school papers.   After reading through the school stuff I am definitely keeping it!  I am so grateful my mom made the effort. Fascinating stuff.

I'll have to remember this for another go-through in 17 years!

That's what my wife does with our sons' "treasures".  There are some great things that will make you start to cry and bring back the memories once you go back through them.  I do that every once in awhile.

It's almost time for me to cull my collection again....it's getting too large (I think I have about 4 file size boxes).

My mom would save everything for a few years...then after a few years when the sentimentality wore off she would go through the stuff more objectively and pick out some of the best/most memorable and save them (especially with school stuff).

So, that's kind of my policy.  I go through the boxes every once and awhile...partially to reorganize them so they take up less space and partially to cull out things that maybe aren't at the top of sentimentality.

Another option for larger things is to take a picture to remember it by.  My sister and I were BIG science fair nerds...and my mom still had all of our science fair boards.  I didn't want to get rid of them but my mom did...so one day when I was there a few years back we dragged them out and took nice pictures of them all...and then ceremoniously tore them apart. :D

That's a great question.  I recently went through mine and got rid of a lot of stuff.  I had newspapers when the cardinals won the world series back in the day and a lot of other "stuff" that seemed important as a kid. 

Then I got to thinking, why keep any of it?  My confirmation, grade scool track ribbons...  It's tough, because I don't ever look at them and probably won't EVER look at them, but it seems wrong to toss them away as trash.

SO, I keep them in a steamer trunk.  I started to think that it was fun to look at that stuff from my parents, so I save it for my kids.  At least to be able to show them what the old man did as a kid and WAS a kid and not always a parent.  I shaved it down to stuff about ME, and not just things I thought were important at the time.

Oh, good add.  I also have stuff that is important, but not to me (like newspaper clippings).  When I sort through my stuff I will divide it out that way!  That should help me eliminate boxes that don't need to go with me when I move.

I move all my "super important to me" stuff PERSONALLY...the movers never get to touch it.  But if they lost a newspaper clipping about some important event not related to me I probably wouldn't care nearly so much. :D