"Your Room Looks Like a Pig Sty!"
When I was a kid and my room got particularly messy, my mother's favorite edict was "Clean up your room, it looks like a pig sty!!" I remember there were often books and clothes strewn on the floor and I suppose to her '60's POV it did look downright disgraceful.
Now, almost 40 years later, my daughter's room does not resemble a pig sty when it's messy--instead it reminds me of a garbage dump...or at least an old-fashioned dump. With admirable self-control (I think), I do not say "your room looks like a pig sty!" The kid has read Charlotte's Web and most likely would describe in excruciating detail just what is in a modern pig sty. She would go on and on and on and while I tried to drown out the endless chatter, I would most likely be picking up shirts, books, Ipod headphones, Ipod cases, stuffed animals, pants, dirty underwear, empty shopping bags, scraps of cloth from a sewing project from 3 weeks ago, candy wrappers and CD cases.
I rationalize my frustration this way: my room as a kid had no place to put things. I had one small book case and a closet with no shelves. I kept everything besides books and clothes under the bed. In contrast, my daughter has two bedside tables both with shelves and cubbies with doors, a bookcase with 8 shelves that reaches nearly to the ceiling and more shelves in her carefully configured (admittedly by me) closet. Oh, and she also has one of those Pottery Barn thingies with the canvas pockets and velcro straps that provides a ton of storage space in each capacious pocket. There are two large dresser drawers with plenty of room too. Well, there isn't plenty of room really, because there's so much CRAP in there already.
The awful truth is that my daughter is a pack rat. There is obviously an undiscovered gene for "pack ratedness" and she has it. She got it from her father, of course. (When my mother and father found out that my brother is gay, my father immediately said "that's from your mother's side of the gene pool! She had a cousin who was light in the loafers!") My daughter's genetic predisposition for packratedness becomes more obvious as she gets older. For example, if I give her a set of Chapsticks from Costco, she opens each one and leaves all of the wrappers on top of her dresser. A few days will go by and I'll say "why don't you throw out those wrappers? Are you saving them?, I ask brightly--hoping to hide my underlying fear that she will grow up to become the first Collyer Sister www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_Brothers. "I will", she says. A week goes by and the wrappers are still there. I imagine they are part of some imaginative creative project that is percolating along in my brilliant daughter's fascinating subconscious. A few more days and I reject that theory and chuck them as I swear under my breath.
She is completely undiscriminating when it comes to what ends up under the bed, pushed into a corner of the room, rolled into a pile or shoved behind the trash can. The other day I found her new tennis skirt--still with tags--under the bed. I also found two very hip, way too expensive shirts that I'd gotten from the local "too cool to live" tweener shop in a pile under two weary looking American Girl dolls. I noticed that one of the dolls was holding a sign that said "Get us out of here!" It's amazing the accessories you can buy from those clever Chicago doll people. Apparently, my daughter hasn't noticed the sign. Good luck, girls....
My son's room is not neat by any means but there is a plan behind the chaos. His room is littered with Legos and Transformers. When I mention that the Legos are beginning to overwhelm the floor space, he always has a sensible response. It's usually something along the lines of "I'm playing. It's a battle scene and Optimus Prime is on a mission. Don't touch anything" So I don't. He too leaves dirty underpants on the floor but for some reason it doesn't bother me as much. I feel a tad guilty about this but it is what it is. The Legos don't bother me much either. It's easy to throw them all in the 3' by 3' container where they live. I did a very clever thing actually. One day I was walking in our downtown area when I spied a huge desk drawer that someone had left on the sidewalk. It's big but shallow and it's perfect for holding millions of pieces of Lego. Plus, I can hit it from anywhere in the room. Gather, gather, gather...splat! and in they go. Game over. Now I think I'll go make sure my own room is picked up.
Now, almost 40 years later, my daughter's room does not resemble a pig sty when it's messy--instead it reminds me of a garbage dump...or at least an old-fashioned dump. With admirable self-control (I think), I do not say "your room looks like a pig sty!" The kid has read Charlotte's Web and most likely would describe in excruciating detail just what is in a modern pig sty. She would go on and on and on and while I tried to drown out the endless chatter, I would most likely be picking up shirts, books, Ipod headphones, Ipod cases, stuffed animals, pants, dirty underwear, empty shopping bags, scraps of cloth from a sewing project from 3 weeks ago, candy wrappers and CD cases.
I rationalize my frustration this way: my room as a kid had no place to put things. I had one small book case and a closet with no shelves. I kept everything besides books and clothes under the bed. In contrast, my daughter has two bedside tables both with shelves and cubbies with doors, a bookcase with 8 shelves that reaches nearly to the ceiling and more shelves in her carefully configured (admittedly by me) closet. Oh, and she also has one of those Pottery Barn thingies with the canvas pockets and velcro straps that provides a ton of storage space in each capacious pocket. There are two large dresser drawers with plenty of room too. Well, there isn't plenty of room really, because there's so much CRAP in there already.
The awful truth is that my daughter is a pack rat. There is obviously an undiscovered gene for "pack ratedness" and she has it. She got it from her father, of course. (When my mother and father found out that my brother is gay, my father immediately said "that's from your mother's side of the gene pool! She had a cousin who was light in the loafers!") My daughter's genetic predisposition for packratedness becomes more obvious as she gets older. For example, if I give her a set of Chapsticks from Costco, she opens each one and leaves all of the wrappers on top of her dresser. A few days will go by and I'll say "why don't you throw out those wrappers? Are you saving them?, I ask brightly--hoping to hide my underlying fear that she will grow up to become the first Collyer Sister www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_Brothers. "I will", she says. A week goes by and the wrappers are still there. I imagine they are part of some imaginative creative project that is percolating along in my brilliant daughter's fascinating subconscious. A few more days and I reject that theory and chuck them as I swear under my breath.
She is completely undiscriminating when it comes to what ends up under the bed, pushed into a corner of the room, rolled into a pile or shoved behind the trash can. The other day I found her new tennis skirt--still with tags--under the bed. I also found two very hip, way too expensive shirts that I'd gotten from the local "too cool to live" tweener shop in a pile under two weary looking American Girl dolls. I noticed that one of the dolls was holding a sign that said "Get us out of here!" It's amazing the accessories you can buy from those clever Chicago doll people. Apparently, my daughter hasn't noticed the sign. Good luck, girls....
My son's room is not neat by any means but there is a plan behind the chaos. His room is littered with Legos and Transformers. When I mention that the Legos are beginning to overwhelm the floor space, he always has a sensible response. It's usually something along the lines of "I'm playing. It's a battle scene and Optimus Prime is on a mission. Don't touch anything" So I don't. He too leaves dirty underpants on the floor but for some reason it doesn't bother me as much. I feel a tad guilty about this but it is what it is. The Legos don't bother me much either. It's easy to throw them all in the 3' by 3' container where they live. I did a very clever thing actually. One day I was walking in our downtown area when I spied a huge desk drawer that someone had left on the sidewalk. It's big but shallow and it's perfect for holding millions of pieces of Lego. Plus, I can hit it from anywhere in the room. Gather, gather, gather...splat! and in they go. Game over. Now I think I'll go make sure my own room is picked up.
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