True Confession: I Take My Kid's Stuff
(I believe the original photo was found here.) |
Apparently this innocent looking picture above has caused a firestorm on the mommy war web. Yikes. I read a very nicely written article about why the bin sucks HERE by The Path Less Taken. You should go read her post. It is good. The thing is, I kind of totally disagree with her (in a nice, non-combative, can we still be friends? kind of way.)
This mom (thumbs pointing at myself) has got to admit something....I would feel like mom SPECTACULAR if I actually did something as organized and clear as a collection bin. Here is how it actually goes down in my house.
(Full disclosure, try not to hate me for admitting one of the many ways I am a freak show walking around in mom pants.)
First I should tell you the ages of my children. They are approximately 7, 5, 3 and 1. My oldest, my son is great about helping and very rarely leaves a mess for me or anybody else. He is my go to guy for cleaning or any kind of help.
The five year old daughter has a lovely habit of packing up all her special stuff, loading it in a stroller and then unpacking it in the living room. She can be very helpful IF she wants to or with a good bribe. She keeps her own things rather neat.
My three year old is like a small, curly haired Tasmanian devil (and I mean that in the NICEST way possible.) She is easier to understand than a Tasmanian devil but actually enjoys yelling "NNNNOOOOOOO!!!!!" more than the creature.
The one year old is officially in the mess making stage and despite the fact that I SHOULD be a seasoned and organized mother at this point with latches on all the cabinets, alas, I am not. She throws stuff on the floor now too.
Then there is me. (I am not even going to APPROACH the mess making habits of my fabulous husband. I am currently focusing on the thousand things he does right.) I am not that organized. I don't really enjoy cleaning. I (gasp) could easily spend too much time on the Internet blogging. I do make a serious effort NOT to do this too much but I do occasionally fail.
So, if you throw it all together in a little tile floored pot you get....one H- E- Double Hockey Sticks of a MESS.
Enter the chore box where you take toys if they leave their crap around.
I would high five myself if I got my crap together enough to actually do something like that, make it, announce it and then follow through. I think I might actually nominate myself as mom of the stinking year. But no, the toy stealing box is decidedly NOT how I handle the constant flux of mess that is my house.
Here is how I handle it:
Sometimes I ignore it.
Sometimes I pick it up myself. (Mostly I do this for the little ones.)
Sometimes I ask the kids to get their stuff.
Sometimes I even "clean with them." (Side note- I see this suggested all the time on blogs about peaceful parenting. Does cleaning with your kids actually work for anybody?! Either my kids are totally dysfunctional or I am doing something horribly wrong- or both- but it does not work for ME. It usually ends up with me cleaning, them chatting and me getting more and more annoyed as they get distracted and don't pitch in. Maybe I should learn that song from Barney. That MUST BE THE MISSING LINK! "Clean up, Clean Up, Everybody everywhere!" BLECH!!!!) Anyway. Needless to say, my attempts and cleaning with the kids usually end very poorly.
Then after all the other attempts have been exhausted I do this:
I FREAK OUT LIKE A NINJA
Then, rather than gently placing their toys in a box and allowing them the privilege of earning them back with another chore, I go nutso. I grab a....TRASH BAG...and I gather up stuff and then- I THROW IT OUT. If it is good enough I donate it to charity. If it is crap, I throw it away.
In. The. Garbage.
If you are wondering if this is traumatic, then you may in fact be right. You can even leave a comment about how awful and abusive I am. Really- go ahead. I won't even blame you. I get it. I am crazy.
Then after this very entertaining episode, I commit to a life as a Mormon housewife who lives like a Buddhist monk. I vow to get rid of all extraneous things. I will only have my drinking cup, a strainer, and some sheets to wear. I will be free of the awful feelings that the love of THINGS has brought into my life. Even just imaging my future monk like existence makes me feel better. Really- it brings peace to my soul. (I actually FANTASIZE about not having a bed and sleeping on a fold out cot thing. Really. I didn't just make that up.)
Unfortunately nobody else in my house is on board with my life of freedom from worldly plastic junk. Nobody else cares. And there is the practical consideration. I have four kids in a single bedroom along with all their toys and clothes. Even if kept to a very minimal amount there is a lot of stuff in a small space. It routinely drives me crazy. I have the misfortune of being both disorganized and frazzled by mess. It is a sure recipe for disaster and capital "C" crazy.
So to all the moms out there who help their existence function a little better with a toy stealing bag or bin or box, I say to you this-
"I wish I was less crazy like me and more like you. You go GIRL!!! I can't even believe that you took the time to make something like that! I feel good about myself if I mop the floor without screaming at somebody. Holy freak girl, I just realized you managed to write a POEM?! Can we be friends?!"
And now, I am going to clean my house. The dread alone is actually numbing. If I was brave I would post a picture of what my house looks like at nine o'clock at night. I will spare you though.
Somebody tell me I am not the only one who is simply glad to survive some days.
Anybody?
Anybody?
Comments
I'm going to implement this right away :)
funny, i too have peaceful visions of being a monk, and just scrubbing floors with a bucket and brush as my daily meditation. just doing it for hours and hours while i think of nothing but scrubbing the floor and humming john denver tunes or maybe black eyed peas songs. LOL
i go crazy on how to be a good mother. i have fought with myself, do i clean up the mess because it bugs me and no one else seems to give a hoot... OR do i demand help as we live in the house together and it is a community living area and every one should feel comfortable in it, even MOM! i shouldn't have to kill myself tripping over stuffed things of break my feet on about a billion legos. then again.. if they don't care why do i? BUT then again they need to take care of their things because it is wasteful to just leave stuff around to get broken.
can you ever win? maybe it isn't about winning. LOL maybe they just need to pick their stuff up! LOL
Do you have a hidden camera in my house, and my mind for that matter?? You could not have described me and my children (even very close in ages) any better.. to a T. Except I don't really throw away their stuff, I keep it in the garbage bag in the basement for a while until they somehow get into it and sneak everything back into their room.
And I personally find that helping them correct their mistakes gives me a bit of motivation to clean up whatever similar flaws I might have ;)
And how often do we find ourselves trying to teach them lessons, and think, If I only took my own advice, Heavenly Father could help ME with this, too!
There are days when our whole house seems like a giant trash can of kids junk because I haven't got the energy to deal with it all the time, and then like you I have a flip-out and have to get some space to breathe!! I encourage my girls to tidy up and I'll help, but it can often end up with me yelling! Kids have to understand how they affect their immediate environment otherwise there's no hope for them as adults and their impact on a wider scale.
I love the bin idea...but alas, it's not me either.
I did creatively come up with a new way to inspire them to clean up. Give them a laundry basket to fill up with their stuff and put away and make a contest out of it. I have to admit that the only reason that I dreamed up such a "game" was because my 36 week belly won't allow me to bend over and pick anything up anymore, LOL.
We all do what we can in this adventure called motherhood, right?
I've thought the box was a "good idea" in a sense - I think kids need to LEARN to take care of their things. If it's been a habitual problem then the box becomes a good learning tool, followed by grace when it becomes a rare occurrence for stuff to be left out.
I WILL agree that this teaches kids that chores are punishments. I heard of a mom doing something similar and her kids had to fork over their allowance money to get it back (and subsequently could do more chores to earn more allowance). I think this teaches REAL life skills. Leave your car in the wrong parking lot? You are going to have to pay to get it back from the towing company, and you may have work more hours to afford to do that!
I think the author of this blog has kinda got it wrong here by focusing too heavily on the belongings. We ALL lose possessions for all kinds of reasons. Things get (truely) stolen, lost, broken, burned in a house fire, etc. so they need to learn how to deal with losing things for whatever reason. And afterall it IS just stuff.
Heck, what works for one child might not work for another one in the same family!
I think TPLT misses the point that this is a learning tool. Kids don't come out automatically knowing the rules. Not all kids are easy learners. And as someone else mentioned, the rest of life is harsh. That doesn't mean we have to be harsh with our children, it means we have to lovingly show them how it works, while they are in the safe environment of their home and family.
You see that person violently swearing at the tow truck receptionist because they towed her car? That person never learned to be responsible for her own stuff. It's always someone else's problem.
So I say, use the bin if you've got kids who need it. It doesn't take them long to figure it out. And if it brings a little more peace into your household, even better.
I did not have the time or the energy for the head explosion that was about to ensue. I had to click, click, click away.
Listen, if other people's children all peacefully and happily pick up because their parents have perfectly modeled such behavior and would never *think* of taking a toy from their child, then more power to them.
But I? Am not harming, abusing or traumatizing my child by taking their crap away if they don't pick it up. Do not equate the toy hostage box to hostile parenting. For the LOVE.
In short, Amen.
signed, fellow psycho-ninja-sporadic-cleaner
Definitely not judging here!
-Lindsay
I do like the box idea, but I don't know that I would get around to it since I am great at procrastinating. :P
I believe in peaceful and gentle parenting but it doesn't always happen that way.
The main principals of non-violent communication are that all actions are motivated by attempting to meet a need and that negative feelings are a result of unmet needs. One more is that we, as adults, are responsible for meeting our own needs. The need for order is one of the main ones addressed here, along with the needs for understanding and ease. When disorder is overwhelming you might feel angry, tired, overwhelmed and frustrated all at once. Setting up a syatem is one way. Are there others?
I need to make a box like that. Wouldn't take too much work. Just copy her poem and I am on my way!
We have a Garbage Faerie. Her name is "Momma". The Garbage Faerie attacks without warning but only things that are left on the floor. My kids don't think it's cute of funny.
Now, as far as "cleaning with them" goes, yes, this works. But only because I'm a drill sergeant. Ok but seriously, "cleaning with them" in my house means everyone, including me, is doing chores. My chores, aside from handing out step by step instructions like a boss are done while everyone else is doing theirs.
Example dialogue: "Abby, you're doing trash, pick up the papers and throw them away. Ethan, honey, put that car *back* in the box, it's pickup time. Ariel, put the cat DOWN, the living room is NOT upstairs, get back down here and gather up the dishes from the living room like I said. Morgan, stop arguing with me and complaining and just pick the dolls up, thank you.
Yes I do too work, I'm doing the dishes right now! I know you don't feel like it, I don't either, and in fact, I don't feel like washing your laundry OR cooking dinner. It's your turn, have fun. What? No? You don't want to clean the bathrooms, do the dishes, take out the trash, mop the floor, scrub the toilets, make three meals, vacuum and dust? Oh. Well how about you just do the little bit I asked you to do and nobody ends up squished like a bug, mmm?" :)
I don't think it's traumatic. It's simple cause and effect. Not only are the children learning that you mean what you say, they are learning that nobody likes to be taken for granted and that keeping your things means taking care of them. I've tried the redirecting, the giving them a choice, everything else. At the end of the day, "Pick this up NOW or it goes in the garbage" works wonders. I tell my kids they must not like it very much if it's on the floor and that's ok, I don't mind tossing it for them. :)