Sorting clothing angst

[pegkerr]

Fiona has been weeping for the last half hour.

We have been going through clothes, because their drawers are overstuffed and we just got another crop of hand-me-downs from the cousins. So I went through their drawers with them and sorted: these to go to the younger cousin, these to go back in the drawer, these to get thrown away. And Fiona is weeping, weeping, weeping, over a couple of shirts, torn and stained with filth and dearly, dearly loved.

She went into the hall where I had put the garbage bag filled with the discards, pulled the shirt out again, and collapsed on the floor, her face buried in it, sobbing.

I know what you're thinking: Peg, if it means so much to her, why not let her have the damn shirt?

I'll tell you why: I married a man who has obsessive-compulsive disorder, who gets physically ill at the idea of throwing things away. At the time I married him, I didn't know what immense stress that would cause our lives. And I am determined that the girls have to learn this: when something is ruined, you have to learn how to get rid of it.

Edited to add: Both girls have a keepsake box, which holds old clothes which are particularly lovely and sentimental (first dress, first christmas dress, etc.), even if they are too small for them to wear.

However, the clothes that Fiona has cathected onto so strongly are not only old, they are faded and covered with holes and ground in stains and dirt. There is nothing the least bit lovely about them. They are complete and utter rags.

I did try to give her some feeling of control by telling her: you can keep one tie-dye T-shirt (she had about five).

You must also keep in mind that the girls are growing. We have limited storage room for clothes that fit them. We can't spare drawer space for clothes that don't fit them and are utter rags, just because they love them so.

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Is Fiona like this with everything--does she never want to get rid of anything? If so, IMHO learning is not the issue. There is something else going on.

If she is not like this about everything, then she already has learned how to get rid of things, and these particular things are just too difficult for her.

Or perhaps it's all a control issue (someone above referred to this). Kids control so little about their lives. Maybe it doesn't feel to her like her clothes are hers at all if someone else gets to decide to get rid of them.

Of all the ideas, I like laurel's best: You determine how many pieces of her clothing the family home has room for, and she determines what to keep. If it means she goes to school in the same two tops over and over because all the rest of the space is taken up by raggedy ones, so what?