|
Who is responsible for this mess?
April 2006
It didn't seem to matter that I had asked the kids at least once a day to do something as reasonable as "pick up your shoes you left in the middle of the floor!" Every day they gave me the same wide-eyed blank look... as if they heard me ask them to pick up after themselves for the first time ever. |
One day, not long ago, I felt totally exasperated with my children's messes left all around the house. They weren't little babies anymore, for heaven's sake. They were growing, eating, and taking up a lot of space in our home. Their stuff took up even more space. The flotsam and jetsam they left floating in their wake littered most of the visible surfaces.
It didn't seem to matter that I had asked the kids at least once a day (for the past 3,650 or so days) to do something as reasonable as "pick up the shoes you left in the middle of the floor!" or "take your empty glass into the kitchen and put it in the dishwasher!" Every day when I repeated my requests, they gave me the same wide-eyed blank look. It was as if each day was the first time they had ever heard me ask them to pick up after themselves.
I had assumed that the reasons for doing these simple tasks were perfectly obvious to even the smallest child. Sneakers left askew in the middle of the floor were unsightly and could be a hazard. Dirty dishes and glasses left around the house meant they wouldn't get washed. Pretty simple, wasn't it?
The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that I was the one assuming all the responsibility for both setting the standards of household cleanliness and upholding them. Not that my kids were protesting, though...they were perfectly happy not to have any responsibility for keeping the house clean. The more I realized how much I took responsibility for getting the kids to pick up their messes, the more logical it seemed that my kids took almost no responsibility for themselves and their stuff.
So, I decided to turn the tables on them. First, I consulted with my husband ("Go for it!" he said). Then, at our next family meeting, I raised the question about what our family standards were for having a clean house. "Are my expectations unreasonable?" I asked. "Maybe I am being too picky and asking for too much cleanliness? Maybe I should lower my standards and learn to accept dirty dishes and people's stuff being left out on the floors and furniture? What do you think?"
There was an uncomfortable silence as my kids looked at each other and then at me and their father. "What is she up to now?" could virtually be seen hanging in a cartoon bubble above their heads.
"I mean it," I reassured them. "I really want to know what you think about how clean or messy we should keep our house. After all, we all have to live here, and we should all feel comfortable here."
My naturally bossy daughter couldn't resist it any longer, "Well!" she began, "You're always leaving the newspaper out on the dining table--you should pick it up when you're done!" "Ok, put newspaper in recycling when done reading it," I wrote down. "What else?" Warming to the task, my son started listing how the kitchen should be kept clean. He didn't like the way his sister left everything out on the counter. "And what do we do about dirty dishes left after snacks?" I asked. "Everyone should put their own dirty dishes in the dishwasher," he said firmly. "Got it," I said, writing it down, "anything else?"
From this meeting we drafted a "Standards of Household Cleanliness" list that was posted on our refrigerator. I would love to say that our home has been a model of tidiness and order since then, but that would be far from truth. What we have been able to accomplish though, is a sense of fairness and shared responsibility for our home. At least now when I issue reminders, I'm asking the kids to uphold our family standards and not just blindly follow Mom's arbitrary rules.
As one of the grownups in the house, I'm resigned to the fact that my kids will never care as much as I do about how clean or messy the living room and kitchen are. But it does a disservice to kids to assume that they don't have any good opinions on the subject or to treat them as if their opinions don't matter. It makes a big difference to all of us whether we are trying to live up to a mutual agreement or being nagged to follow someone else's rules.
Emory Luce Baldwin, LGMFT, is both an experienced parent educator with the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP) and a Family Therapist working with families with children and adolescents in Takoma Park and Kensington. For more information about the talk and other PEP classes and programs, contact PEP at 301-929-8824 or visit www.ParentEncouragement.org. To contact Emory, call 301-588-1451 or go to www.emorylucebaldwin.com.
No comments have been posted to this article.
Want to post a comment to this article? Click here.
|
