"THE LESS GLITTER THE BETTER"

Ultimately, when parents save the treasures of their little artists, they are stocking a hope chest of the imagination. In less poetic terms, someday Mom and Dad will try to give the junk back.

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Ms. Palmer knew what was coming. Her mother was a committed “memorabilia collector,” she said. And yet somehow Ms. Palmer still didn’t know what to do with the four giant portfolios she found one afternoon, deposited outside the house. “They were literally on the porch for a week, leaning over there sadly,” she said. Eventually, Ms. Palmer sorted through the folders. The drawings were legion, she said: some meaningful, some forgettable and forgotten. But the more intensive projects in the time capsule — like the fishbowl made of plastic wrap — sent her mind gamboling back to elementary school.

Eventually, Ms. Palmer winnowed down her collection to “one plump portfolio, which still needs to be edited,” she said. At this point, she realized, no one else is going to do it. “There was this thought, ‘Oh, my mom’s not the keeper of my art anymore,’ ” she said.

- this NYT article