Messes weren’t allowed when I was a kid.
Just about every night I would sleep on top of my bedspread. I did it because I didn’t want to mess up my bed. If I pulled the covers back, I automatically felt stressed because my room wasn’t picture perfect like my mom expected it to be. For my little brother and me, playing with our toys involved nothing but aggravation from our mom. We had great toys and lots of them but taking them off the shelf opened her up to feeling like our whole house was out of sorts. For her, cleanliness was her euphoria.
I grew up with an enormous amount of pressure to be perfect.
Now that it’s almost Christmas time, the messiest time of the year. Somebody NEEDS to read this post. Somebody needs to lighten up on their kids, their self and the world.
I didn’t realize the pressure I grew up with until I brought my own kids home to my mother’s house when they were little. Instead of playing and having fun with them as they toddled around her perfect house, she followed them step for step straightening up every single thing they touched. Don’t get me wrong, her house was beautiful. Everything had a place and it was never out of that place unless my little chubby fingered kids touched it. It drove her crazy.
I would observe her as she followed them around and every “No no” transported me back in time to my own childhood with her. She was fanatical about our house and things. She loved having everything appear just as if it were a photograph in a magazine. For a kid, that’s NO FUN DUDES! Totally, no fun at all.
In case you didn’t know, there is a huge difference in a dirty house and a messy one.
A dirty house that hasn’t been cleaned is gross. A messy house is a house that people live in and use.
Whatever you’re doing as the mom in your family, be the kind who knows how to have a good time. Don’t place unrealistic pressure on your kids and family. Figure out how to enjoy the chaos. There’s NOTHING wrong with having a clean house but for goodness sakes – give your family the freedom to wreck the place and party it up.
Take it from me, you don’t want to leave your kids with a forever memory of sleeping on top of the bedspread.
