Do you keep all of your childrens artwork?

Question

Or art? Or anything? I dont and sometimes I wonder if I am a bad mother. But I hate having clutter...

I do keep some things. And definatly the report cards and important things. I just mean when they are coloring/drawing/art-ing 100 different things per day. Do you keep all of them. Thanks for all of your answers. I see now most of you are like me!!

Answer 1

my mom kept mine in a large box that is still in my old bedroom's closet today. it was fun to take out and look at things when i was older.

Answer 2

My daughter is 16 and has been drawing since she was 2. I noticed at a very young age that she had major talent. I DID buy one of those huge totes when she was little and HAVE saved darn near everything. It has been easy to store and easy to just toss in there when it comes off of the fridge. Now she enjoys going through all of them and seeing how she has progressed over the years. It is something that I have loved doing for her and she thinks it is great.
So, yes, I save all of my child's artwork. Just because you don't does not make you a bad mother. Most of us Mom's don't like the clutter! I have a friend that makes the rule...if you want to put something else of the fridge, something has to come off first. Then she makes them responsible for what happens to it after that. Just an idea!

Answer 3

I have 3 artists living in my house. They all draw mountains of pics. I used to keep most of their art, but it ended up piling up somewhere and then it lost meaning. They are now old enough to where I ask if they want me to keep them or not. Most of the time they tell me I can toss them. Mine like to draw for the drawing sake, not necessarily for the outcome. Some of the better ones make nice motifs for home made greeting cards. When they were smaller we had a special place for art, and we replaced old pics with new ones.
You're not a bad Mom for not keeping everything. When your kids come to you with their art, show special interest in them. Talk about what they did. Comment on the colors, etc. Then ask what should be done with them. Maybe they can be given to grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors... that way you don't feel guilty about tossing them. What they do with the art is up to them.

Answer 4

Well not ALL :)...some I really do but I have three kids if I kept eveyrthing I would need a new house to store it. Sometimes I will hang their artwork up for a few weeks and then recycle. No one has noticed thus far. Sometimes I get caught with "MoM what is THIS doing in the recycling box?" I say well if you want to keep it then lets get it out of there. Then of course next week it's back in ;)

So to answer your question I do not keep eveything but I do keep some for their memory books

HOw about you?

Answer 5

What I do is I take a few very special ones and hang them in my office at work, some in my home office and a few on the fridge. that is around 5 to 10 pics. the rest i put in a keep sake box. when it is time to rotate to some new pics i throw away the old ones(except for some that are near and dear to my heart.) That way things don't get out of hand. If you are this concerned about being a bad mom, chances are you aren't.

Answer 6

No, I don't. I have three children and each one has one of those big plastic boxes. I put everything in there and then once a year or so, I have them help me go through it and decide what we want to keep and what to throw away. That way they don't feel bad, they are the ones making the decision. And most of the time, I have to talk them in to keeping more. A lot of times they want to throw it out because they think it's baby stuff.

Answer 7

I have a hope chest of all my daughters artwork since she was able to create things on her own. I keep everything separated with wax paper so that it keeps. On her wedding day I will then pass the hope chest and all of its belongings down to her, just like my mother had done for me. I have a few of my things still inside the hope chest for her to remember like my baby book and my hand prints and mug I made when I was in kindergarten, my grade school diploma, high school diploma, my under graduate certificate from college and my naval basic training year book. There are things from my mother in there, her baby book and report cards. My grandmother's baby book. My great grandmothers baby book and photo album. My great great grandma's.

She will be able to keep these things and the things of hers and then add on when she has a child and do the same thing as I have done.

Answer 8

My children are 16 and 14 now, but when they were in grade school, I would put there art work on the refridgerator and have them stand next to it and take a picture. I throw away the art work when new stuff came home but always had a copy and them in a picture to scrapbook.

Answer 9

yea, keep them as long as you can...but eventually they need to go into a storage bin until you or they can determine which ones can be held onto for memories or discarded. My parents bought clear plastic folders that had elastic bands on them, and our baby stuff was held inside of them. First haircut, elementary school report cards, honorable mention ribbons, lol. etc. That helped us kids understand that there was only so much room in the folder for whatever we wanted to be remembered. When we moved around, our folders were the childrens first concern. Everyone always remembered to keep an eye on where there folder was. That was our folder. I still have the contents of my folder, just not the folder anymore. (It eventually wore out) lol.

Answer 10

I keep it all. I store most of it but put up my favorites. I figure some day my son will enjoy looking through stuff he did when he was small.

Then again I am a bit packrat-ish.

You're not a bad mother for being organized. Perhaps you could just save the ones you find memorable :)

Answer 11

I have 5 sons. I don't own a house large enough to keep that amount of stuff. I take a picture of the artwork in the hands of the child. We keep the artwork for a length of time on the wall..after that, unless is is exceptional, it is gone.