{"id":25148,"date":"2026-05-27T19:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T19:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/25148\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T19:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T19:38:18","slug":"the-forgotten-reason-teachers-dont-use-the-letter-e-in-grading-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/25148\/","title":{"rendered":"The forgotten reason teachers don’t use the letter ‘E’ in grading anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"

The decades parents spent raising children<\/a> are full, rich, exciting, exhausting, and loud. From babies crying<\/a> to siblings bickering to the raucous laughter that creates collective memories, the sounds of family life<\/a> are constant. Your home is full. The laundry<\/a> never ends. Food gets purchased in bulk.<\/p>\n

Then, one day, you find that the intense family life that took up so much space physically, mentally, and emotionally, dwindles to a strange silence. When the last child moves out, you find yourself swimming in a house full of unused rooms<\/a> and piles of memories. Suddenly, you don\u2019t need all that space<\/a> anymore, and you have to figure out what to do with those rooms and those piles of memories.<\/p>\n

For one couple, the process of downsizing their empty nest brought about a reflection on their family life, their relationship with their kids, and their stuff. In 2021, Jimmy Dunne shared that reflection entitled \u201cDownsizing\u201d on Facebook in a viral post<\/a> that resonated with many people who are at or near this stage in life.<\/p>\n

Here is what he wrote, in his own words<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife Catherine and I recently moved.<\/p>\n

I realized I had something I never knew I had.<\/p>\n

Thirty-four years ago, I carried my wife in my arms over the threshold in our home. Thirty-four years ago. From newlywed days, to witnessing our babies go from little girls to young adults. So many great memories in every inch of every room of our home.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t think I was ready to \u2018downsize.\u2019 What an awful word. I liked walking through our girls\u2019 bedrooms and still seeing their stuff on the walls and on the shelves. I liked our backyard. I liked imagining our kids coming down the steps every Christmas morning.<\/p>\n

We put it on the market, it sold in a couple days, and suddenly agreements thicker than my leg were instructing me to clear everything I ever had and knew \u2013 out.<\/p>\n

Every night I found myself saying goodbye to our backyard, to our garden of roses that Catherine would till and trim, to the sidewalk where the girls drove their Barbie cars and learned to ride their bikes, to our front lawn where we hosted tons of talent shows with all the kids on the block, and the red swing on the front porch.<\/p>\n

We found a condo in town and started lining up our ducks of what we were keeping, and what we were tossing. We vowed, if we\u2019re going to do this, we weren\u2019t putting anything in storage.<\/p>\n

I literally threw out half my stuff. Half. Half of the furniture. Half of my clothes, books. And the big one\u2026 way more than half the boxes in the attic.<\/p>\n

The attic was more than an attic. It held our stories. Every thing in every box, every framed picture was a story. After we gave away almost all of the living room furniture, we split the room in half and brought down everything of the girls from the attic and from their rooms. We invited the girls over, handed them a cocktail and said, \u201cThere\u2019s good news and bad news. We\u2019ve saved all this stuff; your outfits, drawings, dolls, skates \u2014 for you. It\u2019s now yours. The bad news, whatever\u2019s not gone by Friday at 10 in the morning, it\u2019s getting chucked in that giant green dumpster in front of the house.<\/p>\n

The girls thought we were Mr. and Mrs. Satan. But they went through it, and that Friday, most of it went out the front door and right in the dumpster.<\/p>\n

I filled the entire dining room with boxes of all my old stuff. Grade school stories and pictures, report cards, birthday cards, trophies, you name it. Boxes of old plaques and diplomas and just stuff and stuff and stuff like that. How could I throw any of this out? I may as well have been throwing me in the dumpster!<\/p>\n

But this little jerk on my shoulder kept asking \u2014 what are your kids going to do with all this a week after you\u2019re six feet under? They\u2019re gonna chuck it all out!<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the crazy thing. The more I threw stuff in there, the easier it got<\/a>. And I started to kind of like throwing it up and over in that thing. I started to feel lighter. Better.<\/p>\n

And we moved in a half-the-size condo \u2013 and the oddest thing happened.<\/p>\n

It became our home.<\/p>\n

A picture here and there on the wall, Catherine\u2019s favorite pieces of furniture, all her knickknacks in the bathroom. We blinked, and it looked and felt just like us.<\/p>\n

And then I found that thing I never knew I had.<\/p>\n

Enough.<\/p>\n

I had enough.<\/p>\n

The wild thing was that having less \u2013 actually opened the door to so much more. More in my personal life. More in my career. More in everything.<\/p>\n

All I have to do is look in the eyes of my two girls \u2014 and they take me back, every time, to the most beautiful, colorful, emotional scrapbook I could ever dream of having.<\/p>\n

All I have to do is hold my wife\u2019s hand, and it hypnotizes me back to kissing her for the first time, falling in love with everything she did, seeing her in that hospital room holding our first baby for the first time.<\/p>\n

It sure seems there is so much more to see, and feel, and be \u2014 if I have the courage, if I have the will to shape a life that\u2019s just\u2026<\/p>\n

Enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can also read Dunne\u2019s reflection on his website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why this post resonated with so many people<\/p>\n

People shared Dunne\u2019s post more than 24,000 times, and it\u2019s easy to see why. He\u2019s speaking a truth we probably all know deep down on some level: Things don\u2019t make a life. Things don\u2019t make relationships. They don\u2019t even make memories, though we tend to hold onto them as if they do. We may associate places and things with memories, but we don\u2019t need the places and things for our memories to live on.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to notice Dunne\u2019s deep wisdom as the result of a life well-lived. Fortunately for readers everywhere, Dunne compiled his wisdom<\/a>, including the viral \u201cDownsizing,\u201d into a book that was released in September 2024<\/a> by Savio Republic and Post Hill Press, titled Jimmy Dunne Says: 47 Short Stories That Are Sure to Make You Laugh, Cry\u2014and Think<\/a>. Like his Facebook post, Dunne\u2019s book is filled with heartfelt, thought-provoking reflections that stand to teach readers valuable and relatable lessons. It even got an endorsement from none other than actor Henry Winkler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\nhttps:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reels\/C8sJE3PJa0v\n<\/p>\n

The empty nest years can be whatever you want<\/p>\n

Kudos to Dunne and his wife for looking ahead to what their children would have to go through after they pass if they didn\u2019t go through it now themselves. And kudos to them for truly embracing the freedom that comes with having raised your children to adulthood. The empty nest years can be whatever you choose to make of them<\/a>, and this couple has figured out a key to making the most of theirs.<\/p>\n

Keep up with the Dunnes on their Instagram<\/a>, where they share more writing, wisdom, family moments, and sweetest of all, their grandbabies.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared five years ago. It has been updated.<\/p>\n