Mother of a Man-Child

My life with teenage boys

Clean Your Room – Part II November 15, 2013

Filed under: Uncategorized — Mother of a Man-Child @ 10:25 pm
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vacuumA few months ago, I wrote with some excitement about the initial efforts of one of the men-children to clean his room.  So full of stuff was it, that two garbage bags of clothing barely made a dent to the mess on the floor.  But I was excited nevertheless, that we had made a small step towards cleanliness.

Now that said man-child is on “holidays” whilst he finds a full-time job, I mentioned the other day that it was the perfect opportunity to continue to clean his room.  My request was met with compliance and complete agreement from my man-child – with one caveat – he refused to commit to a time frame.  I realised this as each day passed with yet another excuse.

“Give me a break, I’m just on holidays”

“Mum, it’s the weekend, I’ll do it next week”

Q: “When are you doing it?” A: “Dunno”

And finally last week’s response – “you just don’t encourage me or motivate me do you” to which I explained that the first few requests were in fact quite pleasant, but by the time I had asked TEN TIMES I was no longer being nice about it!!!!

We reached a tipping point recently when I was in his room and noticed the layers of dust in the corner – and that was only what I could see readily.  Now to be fair, I wasn’t overly surprised by this, as I have instructed the cleaners to only vacuum carpet that has nothing on it – that’s about one square inch each week.

To top things off, his sheets went unchanged for about 2 months (yes, totally gross, but I absolutely refuse to do this for almost 18-year-old boys) and after he eventually stripped his bed and threw the dirty linen on the floor way back when, rather than make his bed he then slept with a blanket on his mattress, and just the doona (no cover) for another 2-3 months.  Ewwwww!  I tried to explain the benefits of fresh linen, and the wonderful collection of bugs etc that thrive on the human body and live in our mattresses and doonas if we let them, but to no avail.  The other day I explained that I had shared his delightful habits with a friend who was absolutely appalled, and surprise, surprise, that night, he actually changed his sheets.  I must have embarrassed him into doing it (the irony of further sharing his revolting habits with an even wider audience is not lost on me).

As to his room, I have now delivered him an ultimatum – either clean your room by Saturday night or I will clean it myself on Sunday.  Now that caused him to think about his options:

  1. Let Mum do it and find stuff I don’t want her to in my room (who knows what treasures I might find)…..
  2. Let Mum do it and throw out whatever she wants (I will file a lot of “rubbish” in the bin)…..
  3. Do it myself!

I will report next week as to the outcomes of my threat and/or efforts to clean his room.  In case you are wondering, no his twin brother is not like him (thankfully) and does keep his room reasonably tidy and change his sheets regularly.

You can read about my earlier excitement here: 

https://motherofamanchild.com/2013/08/30/breaking-news-man-child-cleans-his-room/

 

More Man-Child Mess August 16, 2013

Filed under: Uncategorized — Mother of a Man-Child @ 5:00 pm
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clean meAs a self-declared neat freak, and very organised person, it pains me to live with the mess of teenage boys. More than two years ago I wrote of my frustration with the lovely conditions that one of my sons chose to live in – not surprisingly we are still living with the same mess (I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the original stuff is still on the floor from my post of July 2011)!!

So what is a neat freak to do? Well we told the cleaners to stop at his bedroom door years ago. Just don’t bother, leave it alone, you can’t see the carpet anyway. Naturally, they can’t help themselves, so they pick up some of the stuff, pile it on his bed, and give part of the floor a cursory vacuum (I feel their pain).

Just tonight said Man-Child declared his room was so messy because his brother is constantly throwing things in the room, a tactic learned from their father, who used to put the dirty frying pan in the bedroom of the offender, when it wasn’t washed. Well when I looked I didn’t see any signs of recent rubbish, dirty breakfast bowls, half eaten pizza crusts, or empty stubbies. I saw a mixture of paperwork, leftover bedding from sleepovers, sports bags from past camping trips, music systems and gifts from Christmas, and crumpled clothing that he will either wear tomorrow or wore a year ago!

After more fighting upstairs recently between the men-children (it’s STILL a common occurrence) I told both of them that at a minimum I expected them to keep their common areas tidy and free of each other’s dirty clothes, crockery, rubbish, etc, but that they could keep their rooms as they chose. Except, it still pisses me off that one bedroom is a veritable swamp!

Tonight, I had a light bulb moment, inspired by the cleaner’s pile of whatever on the bed. I decided I now have two options: I will either bag up everything on the floor and dispose of it in plastic bags (or at least park it on the back porch), or better still, I will just open the cupboards (basically empty) and shove it all in there where I can’t see it, and quite frankly he can just forget about it, freeing the floor for the cleaners, me from further pain, and man-child from some ghastly disease as a result of the bacteria growing in his room.

I mentioned to him that I had a brain wave, and that I would take action on the weekend. Man-Child was filthy at me, and made various threats about what he would do if I set foot in his room. So I intend to stew on it for a few days and then consider implementing my plan. Let me know your thoughts please. Do I have the right to go into his room and clean it up (as the cleaners do)? Am I invading his privacy by doing so? I’m not snooping, just picking stuff up off the floor. He is almost 18, but I am his parent, and it’s my house! Am I crossing the line or not? Any other ideas about how to approach the problem, apart from therapy? Yours in hideous chaos, Mother of a Man-Child.

Here’s the original post about the mess: https://motherofamanchild.com/2011/07/22/living-with-man-child-mess/