Psychological Effects of Hoarding Parents
I believe we have a general Thread about Hoarding but I wonder what are the specific effects on children whose parents are / were hoarders? What is the likelihood of the children also being a hoarder?
I have seen from my family it IS "genetic", and by that I mean that I don't know if it truly relies on human genome, but if the parents are hoarders, generally, the kids will be too, even if they realize what they're doing and may even be disgusted or dismayed by their tendency.
My grandmother has a house filled with clothes and things, which we cleaned out to the floor, about twenty years ago - she saves random pieces of paper family have drawn written on, toys, knick-knacks, collectible glasses from fast food promotions, broken brooms, boxes of hose clamps, etc.
My aunt does the same, though every year or so, she cleans and rearranges and everything looks nice, which she did a few months back, but I had to go in the other day and fix her computer, and could barely get to it and was cramped the whole time, with tables, cabinets and giant boxes full of papers and old tape recorders and such were piled up to the height of a person, all around the tiny cubicle of space. She keeps her plates in the dish drainer because her shelves are full of little glass dogs and California Raisins figures and such.
I have the same problem, though my mother wasn't a bad hoarder, more careless with some things, as things just amass, but I was around my grandmother and aunt a lot, so I think got a lot from them.
Is it genetic or is it that they grow up feeling it is somewhat normal and become desensitized to what should be. I saw one documentary about a family of hoarders that had a young son that was a hoarder himself but when there was an intervention he was so happy and anxious to get rid of the things. I grew up in a similar situation, not as bad but we did have many things, I came out quite the opposite where I can't stand being suffocated by many things around.