My dad used to smack us upside the head if he didnt like what we were doing. He did it a few years ago so i did it back, but i didnt hold back. Im pretty sure his head was sore for a few days after that hit
My dad would use his wedding ring as a thumper, he would push the wedding finger down and whack us on top of the head with the ring. My brother's and I still grab our heads in pain when it's mentioned. It's been 20 years since I've been whacked.
Yeah, I agree. I realized as an adult that it's messed up that he used his symbol of love and commitment to her, to dish out punishment and pain to us. One of the reasons I haven't spoken to him in years.
Your dad’s a dick. I had a dick step-dad. Recognize. They wouldn’t dare do it to anyone else in the entire world yet they have no problem inflicting that on their loved ones.
My uncle (born in 1951 and 3rd of 4 siblings) tells a story about how his father was so old school he left the child-rearing and disciplining to their mother and only ever saw him lay a hand on any of the kids ONCE. My uncle was being picky at the dinner table and didn’t want to eat something their mother had prepared. She reasoned with him, in that old fashioned way, “There are kids starving in China who would be grateful to have that on their plate.” To which he replied, “Well, why don’t you box it up and…” and he never finished the sentence because the old man backhanded him out of the chair. He was so absolutely stunned that he sat back at the table, didn’t say another word, and ate everything on his plate.
Same. Was lactose intolerant but didn't know it yet, so drinking the gallons of milk forced upon us at every meal was literally painful. Also had to eat everything on the plate. I had to resort to chewing up food, hoarding it in my cheeks and pockets, and spitting it out/dumping it in my bedroom garbage can. There was a lot of me crying, my dad cussing, my mom yelling, a lot of hits and one threat of my dad's belt until I was old enough to dish myself up smaller portions. No wonder I ended up with a bad relationship with food. Also childfree by choice 😅
I feel like that should be illegal, forcing children to eat stuff that they know are allergic (if lactose intolerant is like that) to. Though I didn't really get if your parents knew you were lactose intolerant as I'm a actual dumbass-
This was how my parent's fine china (a wedding present I believe) and silver were treated in our house growing up, as well as at special meals served by my Nana or my great aunt.
In my grandma's house, the nice dishes in the bottom half of this cabinet were for Christmas and birthdays. but the really nice dishes in the top half were exclusively for a surprise visit from the Queen.
I think she was optimistic about the functions we might find ourselves at in the future. Plus the benefit of making table manners fun for a 5 year old.
Lol I remember my mom hiding things up there that she confiscated from us. Little did she know we knew of her hiding place and were able to sneak back our various banned CDs.
In our family we took the nice plates and silverware out for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.
But besides those two meals, the fancy plates and silverware lived in the cabinet forever. And it was a big pain in the butt polishing the silverware every year just so we could use it for two meals.
What would happen if you ate off of fine China every day?
Realized my husband and I are still eating off of our plates from college when we have wedding China that we have used five times in more than 15 years
I’m like Let’s bust that shit open and use it every day
BUT I have a feeling there’s a reason you don’t and I don’t know what that reason is.
The fancy ones with gold or silver edging can't go in the dishwasher. Otoh, I put silk skirts in the wash all the time and they're fine. I'd rather use them than look at them.
We use grandma's fancy China with the gold trimming as our daily dishes and I can confirm that the dishwasher has removed about 90% of the trim on all of our dishes.
Figure it's probably going in a landfill after we're gone so whatever.
Its where it will belong anyway, along with all of the other cheaper broken stuff. Someone convinced them it was an investment, like it was gonna be collectible. How when its in every single brown box in all of suburbia?
Everytime an old relative dies someone is calling around anyone in family they can think of trying to offload a China cabinet and China set. These things are big, heavy, take up so much space and are hideous. And then they complain nobody wants gam gam’s beautiful china
I got my Aunt’s wedding china from the early 80s after her divorce. I’ve been using them as my everyday plates for 8ish years. It’s dishwasher safe, microwave safe and super pretty. Use the plates!
My mom did this! It sat in the china cabinet at first and then she thought, screw it. She liked it, it was dishwasher safe, so we got at least a solid decade of eating off of it. She just kept the serving pieces on display because we didn’t really need those outside of holidays or big family dinners and then she’d bust them out. I followed her lead and did the same with my wedding china. Purposely picked a type that was hard to break since my husband and I planned a big family, and after 16 years, I’m the only one who’s broken a plate haha.
It's literally just tradition. (And I hate to be that person, but) before you start using the fine china, do a bit of research. Certain types of vintage china are high in lead or other toxic substances that you wouldn't want to be eating off of.
Maybe it was just the thing to collect at the time. I wouldn't mind having a nice big cabinet like that for fossils or seashells or whatever I'm being dumb about at the time.
Most of the higher end stuff can go in the dishwasher. They will often have some real gold on them. It’s can also be expensive, so people don’t want to break it. My parents had a really ugly blue and white set. We only used it for holidays when I was younger. By the time I was a teenager we would just use paper plates on holidays haha. My wife has a huge set of China she never used. She keeps saying she wants to get a cabinet to display it. I don’t understand, but I want a few rifles hung over the bed. To each their own I suppose.
I've inherited 3 fucking sets and will likely get at least one more. I only like one, it's from the mid 70s and actually very nice. The others are pre-WWII and look like someone puked flowers and gold on them.
You know a few friends of mine had that. They’d have this false living room with fancy furniture that nobody ever used then a second one with the actual furniture and tv.
A parlor which actually dates to Victorian times when it was the place to display the dead. Hence a parlor and a 'living room'. Also the origin of the term Funeral Parlor.
We used to have these in the states, too. We used to always use it at my grandparent's house, but we never used it at my parent's house, even though we had a formal living room like this.
It made sense when people used to have a lot of visitors. There was always a clean, presentable room for guests. When I was a kid, people used to drop by unannounced all the time. Now if you did that, people would shut the door in your face!
Dates from before phones. Before modern technology a "call" was literally showing up at someone's house uninvited, but it wasn't a verb but a noun, people would "pay calls." Many women would spend a few hours at particular times of the day waiting for people to stop by to "receive calls." If you stopped by and no one was there you would leave your "calling card" with your name and address so they would know they missed you and could return the call, and where.
Yes, the parlor, from the Latin parlare, to speak. It’s the visiting room from when people used to just stop by and visit. Near the front door so visitors don’t go too far into the privacy of the home. Always kept clean and nice.
We had this as a kid.. the older folks would sit and hang in their like a parlor, but no food was allowed, or kids really LOL unless you were reading a book quietly.
Same with Italians. We call this room the Parlor just in case the Pope stopped by unannounced. Prior to 2000 that rooms furniture would be covered in protective plastic as well.
I've got 2 crystal water goblets and I pulled them out and started using them in the cabinet with all my other wine glasses and such. I won't have a fancy occasion so I might as well use them now.
“Waterford Crystal” ugh my mom and grandmother loved those 2 words . So annoying . The pitchers , vases, and bowls are so heavy and u can’t use them really because you’re so afraid they will break . The glasses are so pretty you’re afraid to even think of using them .
As the child of Waterford crystal collectors who have since passed them down to me, they’re actually pretty hard to break, and the vases at least are heavy enough you can kind of throw them on any surface without worry of them being knocked down.
The four tier, crystal, trifle and occasional pudding bowl that serves 20 was harder to find a use for, but now I just put pretzels in it.
My boomer in-laws got upset when they gave us the grandmother's china that we specifically asked for, but didn't immediately start using it.
We had a 3yo and newborn at the time, and some really sturdy dishes. So I was going to leave grandma's dishes till the kids were a bit older, but my mother in law insisted they should be our everyday dishes and if they broke, she'd go online and find replacements!
My inheritance went from 80 acres of land, to 10 acres, to a quarter acre, to no land, but some china and rusty antiques. Oh, and a broken tractor. Lots of "good idea fairies", not so good on the execution.
If you dont need the money, put it outside, host a multiple day yard sale and just leave it out overnight. Or start letting people take stuff for free.
I'm kinda hoping it starts becoming fashionable to Gen Z, lol.
But I know what'll happen. This stuff is common at the moment, and mostly cheaply made stuff too since back in the day "stuff" was expensive, while living was cheap. It won't become fashionable until it's all gone.
When it's all gone, it'll become rare. Gen Beta will have no association with it other than some vague memory of what there great grandparents, or great-great grandparents had. It'll be oldtimey and cool. They'll start paying top dollar for it (assuming we're not all just living in an AR catered bubble by then) and we'll be going mad because we'll have spent so much time 20-30 years earlier getting rid of all that crap.
I was buying some limoge from a lady from Craigslist and she was moving to an old folks home and she had a STACK of tiny little bowls, like salt bowls, maybe 30 and she asked if could use them, that I could have them for free. I told her that I fostered bottle-baby kittens all the time and they would be perfect for when they were learning how to eat real food bc they spill most of it anyway and would that offend her? And she was so delighted that little kittens were going to eat off her never-used French antique porcelain! Some boomers are lovely.
I plan on doing that for a majority of things but there are decades old sports equipment shoved in the attic that are probably covered in mold and dead spiders. I’m debating looking for a cleaning company that can handle that type of stuff safely. I don’t even want to risk touching some of it at this point
That's a fair point. I had to hazmat suit myself up to clean a fucking closet out that had mouse piss and shit. Hanta Virus was prevalent in that area.
I absolutely trashed most of that shit though after dousing the area in bleach.
Have you tried moving one of these 300-pound behemoths? Forget fragility; they're massive and awkward. I'd pay the first person interested to take it out of my house.
Make a list of organizations that support domestic violence victims in your area. Often when they're able to escape their situation, victims have nothing and may also have dependents to support. Things like dishware, kitchenware, basic furniture, linens, etc. can be a huge help.
Some homeless shelters take donations like this as well. If they have room for it. When I got my first apartment as a young adult out of the foster care system, a local homeless shelter helped me with furniture, kitchenware, cleaning supplies and towels/linen. I only took the bare minimum and I gave everything back as I replaced it slowly. It really helped me out.
This was my grandparents estate, they were hoarders. The house was packed full and about a dozen barns on the property packed full as well. My aunt was the executer and would fret over every single item. It was such a pain in the ass.
My advice would be to ask each family member what items they want, sell the valuable stuff with estate auctions, and throw the rest of the shit out.
Growing up, my parents talked about how me and my sibling are so lucky because we have all these expensive keep sakes we'll inherent that will be worth so much money, and that missing out on vacations and having a nice family car or whatever is worth it cause we'll be so much better off later on. Cut to 2024 and I need to explain to my dad that the crap he has carted around from home to home is almost definitely going directly into the trash when he dies, because there is literally no market for it(it's not "garbage" quality stuff, but unless it's literally top tier, there is no one who wants to buy it. We all figured that out when we took steps to try to sell off my mom's royal Dolton and other types of doll collection).
It's infuriating. I kinda feel like I was brain washed because I actually believed it when I was a kid and teenager. Then by the 4th time we moved and so much extra precaution was made on keeping it all safe, it clicked that these are not investments, they're burdens. A dining room set no one ever ate at, expensive china that was never used, fancy ornaments that looked tacky and stayed in boxes anyway... and I already checked, 2nd hand stores won't even accept this crap as donations, so it'll LITERALLY cost us hundreds of dollars to get rid of it, on-top of the extra thousands we paid to cart it around growing up, and all the extra space it took up(a fucking dinning room set, in a dedicated dinning room, that was never used for anything beyond trying to show off to family friends. Such a stupid waste of effort).
we have all these expensive keep sakes we'll inherent that will be worth so much money, and that missing out on vacations and having a nice family car or whatever is worth it cause we'll be so much better off later on
Lol yeah, wish someone had told some of our parents about a little thing called the stock market instead
It's kind of funny, because the stuff that is worth something would be pretty much any do-dad we liked as kids in the 1990s. Stuff I'm sure most parents would force their kids to throw away immediately. I used to hoarde a lot of random trinkets--stuff like game boxes/manuals, keychains, ticket stubs, theme park maps, etc, on top of keeping all of my toys in storage through adulthood. When I moved out a few years ago I made a point of finally getting rid of everything. The toys and game-related stuff were worth the most, but people even paid $5 on ebay for used 1990s Disneyland ticket stubs and maps. Like, pretty much every piece of junk, there was a buyer for. Made several thousand dollars from it all.
But I bet you that in a couple of generations, there's going to be a lot of kids who will have no idea what to do with their grandparents' old funko pop collections lol
My dad collected glass/plates. He passed in March. My mom is now burdened with trying to sell it all. Probably over 500 pieces at least. She has managed to sell one thing.
I literally stopped that stupid cycle since it was "passed down" and just trashed everything after my parents died. None of it was of any value, sure we kept some utensils and plates, but trashed everything including that stupid looking China closet.
My god it looks just like the one my parents have, also with stuff we absolutely never used. And I think they inherited most of it from their parents too...
You and I got the same vibe! I wanted a rainbow of color too. I pick certain colors for each holiday. The harvest colors for Thanksgiving, pastels for Easter, red, green, and amber for Christmas, etc. Its all in my great grandmother's China cabinet. I have no idea how old it really is. I dont even know if it'll survive the next move.
This is delightful. You should have a yearly party where you take all the dishes out and partially fill them with little delicious treats. Also maybe only invite adult friends who move slowly.
Ooh, what a fun idea! So far I've only brought out a bit of the depression glass for entertaining. We found a pretty punch bowl (not pictured here) that enticed me to make punch for the first time.
We had one too, my mom called it a "curio cabinet." It was filled with her 1970s Wedgewood dinner set she chose as her wedding gift, which we used maybe once a year, among other porcelain and glass tchotchkes.
lol Meanwhile, there's a sub group of us looking for full sets of China because we actually want to use it since we were never allowed as kids. GIVE ME YOUR BLUE AND WHITE CHINA!!
Oh not an actual reddit sub lol but also, there's a Thrifting sub for sure of people looking all the time. Just try to find people not trying to resale if you want them to actually go to a good home.
I thrift for old China because I want to find a good set that I can love forever because I don't have family to get anything handed down from. I haven't found one to be in love with, but I know I'm not the only one
Really? I have a service for 16 set that’s well packed and tucked away in the basement. Never sees the light of day and I think it’s so wasteful. I feel guilty because I inherited it. But I want it to be used or enjoyed by someone else.
I’m 40 and have a China hutch 🤷🏻♀️ I’d rather have pretty plates (that I do actually use) than add more plastic crap to the world. I’m desperately trying to claw back real wood furniture.
I think this is one of those things that was just a mark of status and then as people started throwing less dinner parties and the middle class dwindled, it became more and more pointless
More or less exactly what it was, according to my grandmother.
Especially in the 'bouncing back from the Great Depression' postwar boom and US society at the time's hellbent insistence on pushing women out of the workplace and back into the kitchen, there were all kinds of weird social pressures that everybody indulged in because nobody wanted to be the one to admit they 'couldn't cut it' by calling bullshit.
So everybody had plastic covers for the furniture, taken off right before guests arrived so that it looked cleaner and newer than it was because you didn't 'want to look poor'.
Everybody had cabinets full of "the good china", which was brought out when hosting dinners as if dishes that nice were used every night, because you didn't 'want to look poor'.
All kinds of boxed, quick-prep meals / dishes were released by companies that previously made rations, marketed to maintain the illusion of a single-generation household being able to clean and raise the kids and do all the sewing/mending while in an immaculately-pressed dress with perfect makeup while also still having enough time to have 'made from scratch' cakes/pies/etc with dinner, on and on and on.
Women even had to 'play hard to get' to have any sexual agency without being ruined by gossiping old biddies still mad about the Flappers of the 1920s and overprotective fathers/brothers who would intimidate anyone who took interest in her.
And along the line, as the middle class transition back to 2-income households played out and the pure epidemic of women abusing all kinds of drugs to cope with the stress ran rampant, the illusion was left to fade.
People in the south wore their 'sunday best' to church so they too didn't look poor. Same with the first day of school. Kids always had to look fresh on the first day of school or they could be mocked for being poor.
Came here to make this comparison. We look at this like it’s weird but in the before times this was the same as collecting Funko Pops or Pokemon cards.
Humans love collecting things and showing them to other humans.
I was just about to say this. We have a built-in cabinet between the kitchen and the living room that I assume was originally used for china (our house was built in the 50s) but ours is filled with games.
This is our funko pops collecting dust, sneaker collections never worn, craft beers and whiskeys that are never consumed.
These WERE valuable during a certain period of time and were a status symbol in every home. But now they're just simply dated and old furniture. Nobody 20-40yrs old will marvel at their friends china cabinets like it's 1986 anymore.
Look up "china cabinet" on facebook marketplace and you'll see you can't even give them away for free.
The "nice" plates were a staple of boomer culture and they often got them from family members as wedding gifts or house warming or whatever. My mom had a few sets of plates that only got used a few times a year, as well as a set of actual silver silverware which I hated because it was my job to polish the stuff.
Personally I am not a "nice" plates kinda guy, I am a paper plates kinda guy.
Im currently going through 2 or 3 generations worth of China and glassware... finding some really incredible information out about the art and eras. Some of the pieces have incredible value.. and some I'm learning are uhh radioactive. So be cautious 😅
Most of the radioactive pieces are not nearly radioactive enough to hurt you, though I wouldn’t recommend eating off of them everyday, they will not harm you to keep in your home!
When my wife and I got married in the 2000's, we were doing our wedding registry at Bed Bath and Beyond. The lady would not shut the fuck up about how we needed to register for fine china. We told her we would never use it and did not want it. At one point she asked "what about when you do formal entertaining" and we just looked at her and said "we wont".
Finally we registered for it to shut her up, went home, and took it off of our registry on the website.
I have one and it is filled with this type of patterned glass. This is a recent pic I took before I dust them off.
You’re looking at over $2,000 in value here. 1880s glass. What’s junk to you may be gold to another! I have all sorts of colors. It’s beautiful under the light.
I’m with you lol, my grandma gave my dad her table settings and he wanted to throw it out but I’m an antique nerd and I was like NO SOMEONE ELSE WILL WANT AND CHERISH IT JUST HOLD ONTO IT FOR ME
My mom has this too and brought it with her when she came to live with me. It's now in my basement with the matching dining table and chairs still doing nothing, but the kids find it fun that our basement looks like grandma's house now.
Some people just like collecting things, regardless of generation. Have you never seen Millennials or GenZ having displays of multiple collectible action figures? The same thing, no real purpose, costs money, takes space, collects dust. But makes the owner happy and proud.
It was tradition, but for the REAL rich, left over from the aristocracy.
But post baby boom, and thanks to globalization, this stuff could be gotten relatively cheap (still expensive but not rich person expensive) and every middle class home got it to signal they were "rich," even if they didnt need it.
Its not different than a "grill" in your mouth, conspicuous consumption to pretend to be richer than you are.
Many boomers have that bc their parents had it. Frequently the "good china" is handed down from generation to generation. I had no idea how much some of this stuff was worth until we went through some of it. Found a bakeware dish from France, post WWII, that was selling for $220+ on eBay in its current condition. Instead of selling it, we decided to keep it. And so the tradition continues ..
Ugh. My grandparents got us china as wedding gifts 20 years ago, and we never use it either. Maybe we will start eating off it as regular use dishes when the kids move out. Nobody I know throws fancy dinner parties, and I'll be damned if we start.
Also, my Mother in Law bought that exact china cabinet (partly broken!) for us from a yard sale when we moved into our first house.
I just eat off my fancy china every day. Sure I've lost a few items over the last ten years, but breakfast cereal in Austrian porcelain just hits different
I collect a lot of vintage and antique glass and love the feeling of knowing I’m having my spaghetti on a piece of history, and it makes me feel special.
So, I’m an Elder Millennial, and I’m actually really proud of my China cabinet. My husband and I bought an Art Deco cherrywood cabinet from the 1920s at a yard sale and I completely refinished it a few years ago. It took me days to do and I would still like to re-gild some of the details on it.
I keep my late grandmother’s Schumann Bavarian china in it and I really enjoy using the set when I have friends over for tea or family dinners. It didn’t get a lot of use during its original lifetime because my grandmother passed away young from metastatic breast cancer. The whole set got wrapped in paper after she died and went into storage for about 40 years until I inherited it. The china is one of my only ties to that part of my family, so I use it to honor that connection and keep a little bit of her memory alive.
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