A year or so ago, every time Baboo had a date coming over, we always had to clean the house. She was adamant that we not humiliate her and I wasn’t too keen on humiliating myself either. One day we were joking around about how clean our house would be if Baboo ever got a boyfriend. We’d have to clean every day! HAHAHA! Seriously, I was laughing while Baboo and I kidded each other. It was a funny moment making fun of ourselves.
Well, Baboo did get a boyfriend. Lucky for me, he has ten younger siblings. And their house is modest and crowded with stuff everywhere. In fact, I audibly sighed in relief when Baboo told me that she went over there on a Sunday and everyone was lounging around it was kind of a mess around there. Or when she mentioned that she had to take something into their master bedroom once and it looked like OUR master bedroom–with things (that don’t necessarily belong to us) everywhere and laundry piled high on the unmade bed. I thought, “They let a stranger into their bedroom like that?” I would never.
(Sidenote: This was so much better than the time she was dating the guy whose mother was a professional organizer. Can you imagine??)
But the result was that Baboo became less concerned about having us scrub for three days prior to her beau coming over. And I was comfortable, too. Which is very rare. There were still times when I kind of cringed or wished he wasn’t seeing something STILL out since the last time he came over. But he was over all the time. There was no way I could keep up a fake image that frequently. And he never seemed phased. Never said any passive aggressive rude comments. He just always seemed accepting.
Anyway, for Christmas, I gave my family the gift of compiling all our family videos for viewing. So for the ten days after Christmas we watched so many family movies. I loved seeing all this old footage. And you know what? I didn’t even mind seeing the mess! And it was messy. This definitely isn’t a story about I looked back in time and things weren’t as bad as I thought they were. They totally were! I just don’t care.
Do you see all those books on the floor in the background of this video? That’s because Wink’s favorite game of all time was pulling every single book she could reach off of the shelves. And I would spend so much time putting them all back nice and neat but the next time she saw them, off they came! I couldn’t keep up! Look at all those TOYS on the floor! We had so many kids playing and not picking up after themselves. During one video, Pink noticed the background and said, “Woah. That’s a lot of diapers!” Yes, it was! We had so many diapers for so long! My personal favorite is the video where the baby (Wink, I think) was playing with a screwdriver. Haha! How not to parent, right? It’s hilarious. She’s playing with and sucking on a screwdriver and no one is even taking it away. We’re just recording her! And then fast forward a little bit in time, on some other day, the baby is crawling around and there’s the screw driver on the floor again and she’s headed straight for it to play with it and stick it in her mouth. For reals. This is gold. I love it all!
Mostly, though, that messy house is just the backdrop for what we are really all gathered around the television to see. Pink used to have the cutest, hugest underbite! And look at Wink when she was chubby! Mack was so cute! Listen to how husky his voice was and how sweetly he speaks! Kelvinator had straight hair for the first half of his life! Look at how short X used to be! JJ was avoiding the camera even at that young age! Baboo and Wiyah lived a life I never knew about with the video camera when we were away from home? Another homemade music video? Yes, please!
These were the stars, the main attraction. That messy house in the background is kind of charming and kind of funny. It helped to produce these amazing people. And there were so many of those amazing little people in the house at a time! I really didn’t feel embarrassment or shame. I’ve never felt that before.
Then at the Relief Society activity the other night, I was talking that humble woman sitting next to me. I told her how I had tried all sorts of chore charts and cleaning zones and reward systems and ideas about not being able to do whatever until household work got done. And how I hated it. How when we were all younger I would obsess over things and was so grouchy about keeping the house clean and yelling at my kids all the time to clean up their stuff and do their jobs. I’m not a good manager. I’m just not good at it. I never had the patience to constantly follow up with all these people about what they were supposed to be doing and whether or not it was done and how well. Shoot me.
But I was pretty good at doing what I needed to get done. And basically that’s how things work now. I do what I need to do to be able to survive in my house. We don’t really have assigned chores at all. Sometimes I’ll tell the kids that we need to have a “quick pick up” which basically means that the entire main level of the house needs to be made livable again. Sometimes the kids just jump in and do it and other times they need specific assignments. I usually assign an area (not a job) to each kid. When the Hubba organizes the kids to work, he usually tells the kids to get points. Each thing they put away is worth one point. They keep track of their own points and depending on the state of the house, the Hubba might want 25 points each or 100 points each. If the house isn’t looking good when everyone is done, he will assign more points.
I told her that my kids were amazing about doing whatever I asked them to. I used to say something like “At noon we are going to do a quick pick up.” And Wiyah would say, “Can I just get started now?” And if my teenage boys are on the computer and I say, “When you’re done with that game, can you….?” They often respond, “I can do that right now, Mom.” And they pause their game and do it immediately. Or if I stand in a room and say, “Can somebody help me with…?” I often get two or three kids coming from other rooms saying, “I can do that.”
The lady was looking at me in amazement and so I had to clarify that the downside of all of this is that my kids pretty much only do things when I ask. So in other words, if I don’t specifically ask for something to be done, no one really takes the initiative to get it done. And our house is still pretty messy (though I can definitely see improvement from 7 years ago!). And then I said something like, “I guess I basically made the choice that I’d rather have a messy house than be frustrated with my kids all the time.”
And it just struck me. That is the exact choice that I made. I’m not at all interested in making another chore chart or following up to make sure things got done or getting on anybody’s case because it wasn’t done well enough. I also don’t have the energy/inclination to work all day thoroughly cleaning my house myself. But I made that choice.
And it’s a legitimate choice.
It’s ok for me to prioritize that way.
I can just stand by my choice and say, “This is how I prefer to live my life.” I don’t need to be humiliated by it.
The platitudes say that if you’re house is messy it must be because you are doing awesome activities and crafts and playing with your kids instead of steam cleaning your corners. That just made me feel guilty because I wasn’t doing awesome things with my kids. I was reading a book or on the computer.
Other platitudes say cute little things about how it’s ok to leave fingerprints on walls or neglect your dusting because children are only young once and they’ll be gone soon. Fingerprints? Dusting? You’ve got to be kidding me? Those things would be EASY to ignore. Who even cares? It also made me feel guilty because those things were so minor. I’m talking about mountains of laundry and filth and not having dishes to eat off of because I’m so behind in the kitchen. (The stories I could tell!) You can’t really ignore those things. Those things aren’t “cute” things to let go.
But I did it. And the world didn’t stop spinning. Life continues to go on even with a trashed house.
I wish that I could have figured out how to keep the house picked up and be sane. But I didn’t. I wish I could have figured out how to organize and manage my kids so that they would all be hard workers and do jobs without being asked. But I never could figure out a way to do it without yelling and getting frustrated.
So I just did it this way. And there are perks to this way. Like, I’m totally the most laid back parent that I know. And my kids are so awesome. The house gets clean when we really need it to. The older kids totally picked up my slack, too. I’m good at getting a job done and they learned how to manage the younger kids. They each have a different style, too. So that’s a skill they can take with them into adulthood and parenthood that I don’t have. And I think that seeing me work hard without necessarily asking them to do anything has made them more helpful and willing when I do ask.
There are perks to other ways, too. I’m not saying I’ve got the corner on the market by any means. I’m just saying this way has had it’s pros and cons. I definitely don’t like the cons. But it was the best way I could figure out and I definitely like the pros.
I’m exhausted by being ashamed of our messes all the time. You know what? Life is messy. Family is messy. But I’m accepting of messes. I’m a mess. Sometimes my kids and husband are. Sometimes we all are. And all are welcome here.
I choose to accept it.
sparkling blue 