Sloppy Kids Made by Mom

The Boston Herald

She told me, when my children were babies that once I started picking up after them I would never stop. "If he's old enough to get a toy out of a toy  box, then he's old enough to put it back when he's done with it," my mother-in-law said. 

And I said, "You're absolutely right.”

But when she wasn't around, I didn't heed her advice. I'd look at the mess on the floor, Fisher Price people everywhere, Legos under the couch, coloring books mixed in with Golden books, pieces of crayon next to half eaten cookies, and I'd think, he's only a baby. He can't clean up this mess himself.

And so I would. He'd sit and watch Sesame Street and I'd put the cows and the sheep back in the red barn, and Mr. Hooper back in his store, and the crayons back in their box, and get the vacuum and in no time the place was clean.

Then along came baby number two, and more toys and another toy box. Now two babies sat and watched Big Bird while I cleaned  up. I liked cleaning up. I was at the stage of my life where I got satisfaction from putting plastic people back where they belonged. I didn't even mind vacuuming. I liked the way the rug looked with the vacuum lines all going the same way. I liked the way my kids looked on the couch sitting side-by-side. They were happy. I was happy.

My mother-in-law? Well, she just kept shaking her head and saying things like, "Mark my words. You're spoiling them. You are going to live to regret this. They are never going to learn to pick up after themselves, if you keep doing it for them.”

I kept doing it for them. I made their beds. I hung up their clothes. I took their empty plates and put them in the sink. I gathered their things and put them back where they belonged.

Then one day, when my son was about eight, I stopped. I wasn't having fun anymore. Vacuum lines in the carpet no longer impressed me. So I said, "You're old enough to clean up after yourselves. I quit.”

And I did, for a while. I didn't make their beds and so their beds remained unmade. I didn't hang up their clothes and so they wore them wrinkled.  I didn't put away their things and so their things overtook the house.

And I, of course, got crazy.

"This isn't working,” I told my mother-in-law. "The  house  is  a  mess.  I have to clean it.”

"Make them clean it,”   she said. "Tell them they can't leave the house until they've done their chores. Be firm.” 

Firm? Make them clean? I didn't know how.

"If you don't clean your room, I'm going to throw everything that's on the bed and on the floor out the window," I told my son the next day. I thought this was extremely firm.

My son, of course, didn't believe me. I didn't believe me. But while he was at school, I threw his shorts and sweatshirts and baseball cards and books, everything that wasn't where it belonged, right onto the front lawn.

And then I felt guilty. He was just a little kid. He wasn't a bad kid. He was just a slob. It was my fault his room was a mess. I'd made him a slob. I raced downstairs and out to the lawn, and gathered up his stuff and put it back where it belonged, made his bed, vacuumed his room and even organized his baseball cards.

"Thanks Mom,”  he said when he came home. "My room looks great." "When are you going to do mine?" my daughter wanted to know. 

When I told my mother-in-law what had happened she just sighed. "They're never going to learn if you keep giving into them. You have to put your foot down now, while they're young.” 

I never put my foot down. I used my feet, instead, to walk down the hall and shut their bedroom doors. The result is that in my kids' rooms, my grown-up kids' rooms, clothes hang from open drawers, towels cover the floors and their beds. Are there beds in there?

The point is, of course, that my mother-in-law was right. I admit it. I turned my kids into slobs.

A postscript: They grew up. They moved out. They got places of their own. And what do you know? They make their beds and hang up their clothes.