Okay, first off, I want to say that I'm not assuming that all RU parents are messy like me. Also, I don't want to imply that I never ask my children to help me around the house, or that they're never willing to. They usually help -- sometimes on their own, sometimes in response to being asked, and sometimes they don't want to for some reason, and I go ahead and do whatever on my own, if I care to have it done.
So ... our messy house isn't messy because I'm "too scared" to ask my kids to do anything. I'm sure they'd think about helping way more, if I were the kind of mom who thought about cleaning more. Cleaning (apart from the basics of keeping up with laundry, dishes, and bed-making -- for comfy sleep) is just usually kind of an after-thought to me.
Mess often piles up 'til it bugs me enough to tackle something. And then, doing just one room or part of the house makes me feel so good, I'm satisfied and relax for a while.
Enter dd, age 7, and her need for friendships. I think most girls dd's age have some awareness that you don't just walk into someone else's home and start critiquing everything. At least, my dd does. I recall that when she was 5, she told me (when we were home alone), "You know, so-and-so's house is even messier than ours!" And I said, "Well, if you say that to them, it's liable to hurt their feelings," and dd said, "Mommy, I'm not stupid! I'd never tell them that -- I'm just telling you!"
So, one of dd's friends (age 6), who dd loves playing with, comes from a large family with a very neat mama. This mama (a good friend of mine) can't stand clutter, and they have an extensive chore-chart, and the kids frequently have to miss out on fun stuff as a consequence of not getting their chores done.
One of our mutual friends has older children, and therefore has had more contact with the older children in the "neat" family, and she says they're all very openly critical when they come to their house (because it's not as neat as theirs), to the point where her own kids don't enjoy being with them that much.
Dd's little playmate used to just seem happy to come play -- but now she's starting to become very critical, like her older siblings (and it works best for most of dd's long playdates to take place in our home, because our dd isn't as comfortable going places without me or her dad for long periods, whereas all of her friends seem happy to come over here for a whole day or an overnight stay ... the long playdates also work best because of our current transportation situation).
Anyhow, if it were one of my friends coming in and critiquing, I'd be happy to show her to the door -- but since dd loves playing with this little girl, and it takes so much time to cultivate these friendship (and dd is always expressing a need for more friends, and even has a good friend who's moving away), I feel like I need to accept her friends as they are, not be mean because they're getting into my space and being rude.
I guess I just need help with boundary-setting that's kind enough that the child doesn't feel totally rejected.
The little girl came the other day -- and when they headed to dd's room she announced, "Your room's messy! I don't want to play in there."
Dd said, "Well, the whole house is messy, so what do you want to do?" (The mama had said she didn't want her dd getting her clothes muddy, and our yard was very muddy from the melting snow, so outdoor play was out). The girl eventually overcame her revulsion enough to play with dd -- but asked me some pointed questions, as in:
Her: Why don't you make your dd clean?
Me: That's really our business -- just as I don't come to your house and ask your mom why she makes you clean, because that's your mom's and your business.
Her: Oh ... well, my mom always makes us clean and that's why our house is always clean.
Later she came into our family-bed room and asked, why is it messy in here?
Me: Because it's messy.
Her: Oh ... does your baby make a mess?
Me: Sometimes she does. (Girl, looking puzzled, goes off to play.)
Maybe I should respond to all this curiosity by sharing my beliefs about children being able to choose, or maybe I should just say, "We have other interests besides just cleaning all the time ... I'm glad you're happy with the way your family does things ... each family does things differently and that's okay."
So ... I'm pondering what to do if it comes up again (and I don't see any reason to believe that it won't: this child seems totally clueless about what my dd learned early on -- almost by osmosis: that sometimes you can just observe that people are different, without critiquing them directly, or giving them the third degree).
I'm probably guilty of reverse-snobbery here -- but I certainly don't think these children's attitude is created by growing up in a clean home, and I also know that their mom (my good friend) is not at all the sort to cut people down behind their back (she's too busy cleaning,
). It's not my job to figure out where it's coming from, or why it seems to get worse with age, rather than the children getting more discreet as they get older and gain more experience of life and diversity.
Even though I know it's not my job to analyze, I guess it's just second nature -- and I think I may have figured it out: Just as I find it hard to understand why these children walk into houses and start critiquing/questioning their hosts if things aren't as neat as they're accustomed to (and seem to do it more, not less, as they get older and more mature) -- apparently they just can't wrap their minds around the idea that other families do things differently. So they keep giving people the third degree, in their attempts to understand.
I don't know why they lack this ability (to make room in their minds for messy people) -- but since I think learning tolerance is a good thing, it's probably good for me to learn to be more accepting of people like this, people I used to ditch in my other life (my pre-kids' life).
Also, the mom is a good friend (totally non-critical and tolerant of my messy house) who once expressed concern, to me, that her children all seem to develop an attitude that they aren't going to make the mistakes other people make, and they are always going to live their lives perfectly. She doesn't like it, either. So she's certainly not trying to create it.
So ... our messy house isn't messy because I'm "too scared" to ask my kids to do anything. I'm sure they'd think about helping way more, if I were the kind of mom who thought about cleaning more. Cleaning (apart from the basics of keeping up with laundry, dishes, and bed-making -- for comfy sleep) is just usually kind of an after-thought to me.
Mess often piles up 'til it bugs me enough to tackle something. And then, doing just one room or part of the house makes me feel so good, I'm satisfied and relax for a while.
Enter dd, age 7, and her need for friendships. I think most girls dd's age have some awareness that you don't just walk into someone else's home and start critiquing everything. At least, my dd does. I recall that when she was 5, she told me (when we were home alone), "You know, so-and-so's house is even messier than ours!" And I said, "Well, if you say that to them, it's liable to hurt their feelings," and dd said, "Mommy, I'm not stupid! I'd never tell them that -- I'm just telling you!"
So, one of dd's friends (age 6), who dd loves playing with, comes from a large family with a very neat mama. This mama (a good friend of mine) can't stand clutter, and they have an extensive chore-chart, and the kids frequently have to miss out on fun stuff as a consequence of not getting their chores done.
One of our mutual friends has older children, and therefore has had more contact with the older children in the "neat" family, and she says they're all very openly critical when they come to their house (because it's not as neat as theirs), to the point where her own kids don't enjoy being with them that much.
Dd's little playmate used to just seem happy to come play -- but now she's starting to become very critical, like her older siblings (and it works best for most of dd's long playdates to take place in our home, because our dd isn't as comfortable going places without me or her dad for long periods, whereas all of her friends seem happy to come over here for a whole day or an overnight stay ... the long playdates also work best because of our current transportation situation).
Anyhow, if it were one of my friends coming in and critiquing, I'd be happy to show her to the door -- but since dd loves playing with this little girl, and it takes so much time to cultivate these friendship (and dd is always expressing a need for more friends, and even has a good friend who's moving away), I feel like I need to accept her friends as they are, not be mean because they're getting into my space and being rude.
I guess I just need help with boundary-setting that's kind enough that the child doesn't feel totally rejected.
The little girl came the other day -- and when they headed to dd's room she announced, "Your room's messy! I don't want to play in there."
Dd said, "Well, the whole house is messy, so what do you want to do?" (The mama had said she didn't want her dd getting her clothes muddy, and our yard was very muddy from the melting snow, so outdoor play was out). The girl eventually overcame her revulsion enough to play with dd -- but asked me some pointed questions, as in:
Her: Why don't you make your dd clean?
Me: That's really our business -- just as I don't come to your house and ask your mom why she makes you clean, because that's your mom's and your business.
Her: Oh ... well, my mom always makes us clean and that's why our house is always clean.
Later she came into our family-bed room and asked, why is it messy in here?
Me: Because it's messy.
Her: Oh ... does your baby make a mess?
Me: Sometimes she does. (Girl, looking puzzled, goes off to play.)
Maybe I should respond to all this curiosity by sharing my beliefs about children being able to choose, or maybe I should just say, "We have other interests besides just cleaning all the time ... I'm glad you're happy with the way your family does things ... each family does things differently and that's okay."
So ... I'm pondering what to do if it comes up again (and I don't see any reason to believe that it won't: this child seems totally clueless about what my dd learned early on -- almost by osmosis: that sometimes you can just observe that people are different, without critiquing them directly, or giving them the third degree).
I'm probably guilty of reverse-snobbery here -- but I certainly don't think these children's attitude is created by growing up in a clean home, and I also know that their mom (my good friend) is not at all the sort to cut people down behind their back (she's too busy cleaning,
Even though I know it's not my job to analyze, I guess it's just second nature -- and I think I may have figured it out: Just as I find it hard to understand why these children walk into houses and start critiquing/questioning their hosts if things aren't as neat as they're accustomed to (and seem to do it more, not less, as they get older and more mature) -- apparently they just can't wrap their minds around the idea that other families do things differently. So they keep giving people the third degree, in their attempts to understand.
I don't know why they lack this ability (to make room in their minds for messy people) -- but since I think learning tolerance is a good thing, it's probably good for me to learn to be more accepting of people like this, people I used to ditch in my other life (my pre-kids' life).
Also, the mom is a good friend (totally non-critical and tolerant of my messy house) who once expressed concern, to me, that her children all seem to develop an attitude that they aren't going to make the mistakes other people make, and they are always going to live their lives perfectly. She doesn't like it, either. So she's certainly not trying to create it.