I feel like I need to apologize to my parents.
Saturday is "Bedroom Cleaning Day" at our house. The older two kids and I all head up after breakfast and start cleaning our rooms. I admit that my room needs cleaning as bad as the kid's room need it. My daughter cleans her room with out a fight, and before we know she is playing and loving her clean room. Seriously. She is good at cleaning her room. I swear that today she was done in about ten minutes because she has a place for everything, and she tidies up during the week.
This is not the case with my oldest son.
He is more like me. Growing up, I remember when my dad would ask me to clean my room. I am not a neat person in general (but I am improving!) and I dreaded the day that my mom or dad would ask me to clean my room. I remember crying, and putting it off. I remember being easily distracted by what I was putting away. If I found a book, I might stop for a few minutes to read. If I found a doll, I would stop and get it dressed or do it's hair. If I found a note from a friend, I might stop and write a reply. Let's just say that it took hours to get my room clean. And then my dad (or mom - although I mostly remember my dad's inspections) would come in to inspect. I tell you, it was never clean enough.
I also remember thinking, "When I have kids, I will remember that their version of clean is different than mine!" or "When I have kids, I will remember that it might look messy to me, but I bet they know where everything is!" Because, even though my room was a mess, I knew where everything was. I promise. :)
Getting my oldest to clean is room is very similar. He gets easily over-whelmed and distracted. There is much yelling, threatening and bargaining happening. Some times it takes hours to get it done. Today it was probably about 1.5 hours. Then I inspected and it still wasn't done. A few minutes later he was finished, but I was frustrated.
I told Bryan, "I feel like I need to call my parents and apologize. This is exactly what they went through with me!"
So, Mom and Dad, I'm sorry!
Please, please let my youngest be like my daughter when it comes to cleaning!
4 comments:
My oldest daughter was the same way, lol. I am a neat freak myself so we knocked heads a lot. One thing I did that helped a lot was this: I would go into her room and guide her as to what to do. I would say, "First pick up all of your clothes...." or whatever and then move on to books, or blocks or whatever. It took patience but it helped keep her on track...most of the time : )
I was totally that same way when I was little. I couldn't clean to save my life. I'm sure it was so frustrating for my mom. I'm sure I'll get plenty of payback by way of kids. no question. Good for you for having them clean up, sometimes it's not even worth the fight! :)
My younger sister was that way. We would never see her on Saturday because she was in her bedroom buried under all her stuff and trying to clean her way out. My kids did their Saturday chores this morning and then wanted to work more to earn extra money. I got 5 hrs housework out of everyone. My house is so clean!
We're tow peas in a pod, I was, and still am the same way!!! I hated cleaning as a kid. And I still don't care for it now.
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