I wait and plot and hide, ready for the ambush. He gets home from school and I attack. What the heck happened to your room? How could that happen in two days? I couldn't make a mess like that if I tried! And so on. He is not rude about this (like me) and simply looks perplexed. Sometimes he looks like is-this-going-to-cost-me-Minecraft-time? But that's it. He doesn't care. At all.
Meanwhile, my little neatnik son is freaking that there's a layer, a layer, of dust on all his furniture. And his floor has *gasp* LINT on it. Lint and FUZZ! Aah! What kind of mum am I anyway, he'd like to know. No, he wouldn't. He's a good boy. I'd like to know it. Why am I spending all my time on one child who doesn't give a rat's tail what his room looks like while ignoring the child who would simply like his bookshelf dusted thank you very much.
My 7-yr-old keeps his room immaculate. He likes it that way. He needs his environment to be in order. And clean. But I'm so tired from helping my 9-yr-old clean his mess that I only half-heartedly help my little one who asked ever so politely (sometimes "with a cherry on top") for some dusting and vacuuming.
So, to my 9-yr-old who can magically conjure up a pile of trash, dirty clothes, snotty tissues, books, and Lego pieces in less than an hour, then dump them on every available surface of his room--NO help for YOU!
NO help for YOU! |
Have you ever reached the point where you simply refuse to clean
(or help clean) your kid's room?