"You Need to Clean Your Room"

If you are like me, when your baby is born you color-coordinate, style and arrange every detail in their room. You spend hours evaluating the shade of a possible color purchase and make sure that everything is model-home appealing. Right down to placing great-aunt so & so's tea cups on a shelf. Toys are not set on shelves, they are displayed as if ready to be photographed. Everything looks wonderful!

Yep, that works for a few years...

Until you listen to your kids' ideas and they begin to express themselves, not merely echo your direction.

I'm glad the room in this picture was not a permanent fixture in our home until our girl was in 10th grade. Before that, she had maintained our standards of cleanliness with much angst on all our parts. I had read parenting books, listened to talk radio gurus and friends. All had their opinion regarding how a child's room should be kept.

There was the "you do not go anywhere until your room is cleaned up by noon on Saturday" philosophy. That's when I used to wake up early and leave the house - and my husband - to monitor her cleaning process. It was agony before, during and after and we got a clean room for the afternoon.

There was the "you don't get a door on your room because it is such a slop pile" philosophy. We removed the door to her room and thought that would do it. After all, she had a toddler brother who would now have access to her treasures, including her beloved American Girl dolls. This did not do it, either.

There were many more attempts at "encouraging" room maintenance well before 10th grade. Her allowance was even tied into room condition, but that's another topic. We did sticker charts, laminated signs and white glove inspections to no avail.

So... when I took this picture, I was smiling. Clean clothes were blended with dirty ones strewn all over the floor. Dresser drawers and closet doors were ajar. Clutter and water bottles (not shown) were everywhere. And why make the bed? It certainly was not a room I could find solitude in, much less fall asleep. But guess who comfortably plopped on her messy bed, kicked off a towel or other item and snuggled up to do her homework?

Why could I smile? I had finally stopped listening to other people's "should list" and relaxed my colon. So what if my girl kept her room so messy? That was our only issue with her. If a crappy room was the worst thing she did, so be it. I decided to save my nagging breath in spite of frowns from friends, some of whom did not even have children. We discovered this new magical rule called "keep your door shut". It worked perfectly! We didn't see it and the rest of the house was "Zen". A small price to pay for a kid who grew up to be a great woman who manages her own life, huh?