Teach Your Kids to Detach from Stuff ... But How?!

I have been fortunate enough to be invited to come with my mom to a restaurant every now and then to hang out with her and her high school friends. They are the neatest bunch of 60-year-old chicks out there, and I love being able to go meet with them. I was able to get away recently thanks to Jordan (Aron was working on our wooden fence that's falling down, so I needed my daughtersitter). I got to spend an hour and a half with 5 cool women, including my own mom, AND eat the best pizza out there AND drink iced tea AND eat a big old slice of white cake. Don't tell my husband about the bad diet (never mind, he reads the blog, so the jig is up).

One topic that came up was junk we have in our homes. One woman has cool crap that her kids are going to want someday, but that's because she has traveled the world and has unique crap. The rest of us, though, decided long ago that if we don't want our parents' crap, why would our kids want OUR crap?

Crap (aka material items, some that have emotional meeting and most that do not) can make us depressed, it can take over our lives, it can make cleaning our home seem almost impossible. Little kids love their crap because they are just starting to collect it and everything is special to them (ah, the rocks!).

How do you teach your kids to detach from crap? I know my kids see me getting rid of more and more stuff over the last few years and not accepting new stuff. Recently my dad gave me a bunch of framed photos of my from when I was a kid and I'm thinking, "What am I going to do with these? I'm not going to put them up all over the house because (1) it's narcissistic and (2) I don't have the room!" So they are in the basement because I am stuck and don't know what to do with them and don't want to hurt Dad's feelings. (I think I'll just take the pics out, see if he wants the frames and if he does not, I'll donate them and just file the pics away).

I know this is a topic that could span many a blog post and this is just the tip of the iceberg, right (I have lots of posts under the label down the right side of the blog under CLEANING where I talk about getting rid of crap, storing crap, etc.)

What are your ideas? And by the way, happy birthday to my dad, who is one cool guy and grandpa to 8 kids (I have 2 step-nieces and 1 brand new step-nephew!).