Talk – “No Thanks Mom: The Top Ten Objects Your Kids Do NOT Want”

Join us for a talk by Dr. Elizabeth Stewart about her latest book.

Free entry for member/ $5 Guests
Reservation Required.
Click here to make a reservation.

No Thanks Mom: The Top Ten Objects Your Kids Do NOT Want (and what to do with them) is an honest and humorous exploration of the generational differences in the households and possessions of Millennials/Gen-Xers and their Boomer parents. The central conflict is that most of the Boomers’ grown kids are refusing the family heirlooms that have been saved for them.

Dr. Stewart, a certified appraiser (and SBHM docent!) discusses the top 10 objects that younger generations do not want as “gifts” from the homes of their parents and grandparents. She finds a consistent pattern of familial tensions over objects that older relatives have saved for the kids, wishing and hoping to pass on the beloved family treasures. If you’ve tried to pass on fine china, tableware, linens, fine porcelain figurines, silver-plated objects, ornate rugs, or heavy, dark furniture to a Millennial, you know it’s not so easy.

The problem, Dr. Stewart says, is the intergenerational difference in the concept of value and ownership. The answer, she explains, is to understand the new and changing concept of home, and to follow her specific remedies for each category of objects.

Stewart reviews each of the 10 object groups and gives the current owners ideas on how to pass them on. She provides an easy way to survey your belongings and offers advice on how to verify value and, where there is a market, how to put your items in play.

Dr. Stewart is a certified member of the Appraisers Association of America and a 30-year veteran of “stuff.” She analyzes art and antiques for estate planning to ascertain value, and is one of the few appraisers nationally qualified in donation appraisals for IRS deduction purposes.

She advises on the best places to sell “stuff,” and why certain things are worth keeping. Her favorite career challenges have included the late Jonathan Winters estate of 160,000 objects, a tech executive’s university donation of 20 truckloads of virtual reality, and a 50-year historical research archive that a Guggenheim fellow donated to UCSB.

Her column, “Ask the Appraiser,” appears weekly in the Santa Barbara News Press under the pseudonym “The Golddigger.” She also hosts a weekly radio show covering the arts on KZSB. Her first book, Collect Value Divest: The Savvy Appraiser, relates tales of the various categories of objects that people both collect and want to sell.

Dr. Stewart holds a PhD from Pacifica in Mythological Studies with an emphasis on Material Culture. Her dissertation, titled The Material Image: Why Collectors Collect, is a scholarly approach to consumers, collectors, connoisseurs and hoarders.