A messy teenage bedroom comes full circle

My son’s room is driving me crazy. My own parents find this hilarious

Confession: I was a teenage slob.

Back in the day, my bedroom was a bona fide disaster zone. Imagine — if you will — a floor buried under layers of clothes, shoes and boots. It was the grunge era; there was a lot of flannel and denim. For years, I kept mountains of magazines (Seventeen, Vogue, Tiger Beat) stacked up against the walls, themselves papered ceiling to carpet with collages, posters and pin-ups. I used to dig out a little path from the door to the bed, which was permanently crumpled and unmade. My dresser was covered in birthday cards, coffee mugs, water glasses, hair elastics, hairspray and perfume bottles (my signature scents were Benetton Colours and, later, Body Shop Vanilla). In the middle of the room, large Rubbermaid containers full of cassette tapes (cassette tapes!) were piled in the general vicinity of my ghetto blaster (ghetto blaster!). It was the ’90s, OK?

And now, imagine my parents’ reaction today when I tell them that the mess in my son’s room is driving me crazy.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard either of them laugh sohard.

I’ve cleaned up my act a bit over the years. Still, I like to think I have a fairly high threshold for what we’ll call lived-in spaces.

But how can one kid have so many individual socks balled up in the corners of one room? Every flat surface is covered with knick-knacks from the summer camp tuck shop, science experiments and class projects, markers, pencil crayons and trading cards. Baseball uniforms hang from doorknobs and bookshelf corners. Every single Rick Riordan and Jeff Kinney book ever written is on the floor, somewhere amid the comics, camping gear and water bottles.

To be fair, we live in an older Montreal house with no closets. He’s got a dresser for his clothes, but this, of course, would necessitate a certain amount of folding and organizing. Instead, every drawer is open. Stuff just cascades out. When I brought this up with my parents recently, they reminded me that I used to bring the laundry hamper with clean clothes up from the basement and just live out of that.

I don’t remember this, but it sounds about right.

Here’s the thing: I don’t recall ever feeling like my room was messy or dirty. It felt familiar. I knew where everything was, and what piles to navigate, even if no one else did. Truth be told, I took a certain pride in the chaos. It was my chaos. In a crazy world, it was my refuge. I used to spend hours in that space listening to music, talking on the phone, hanging out with friends, dreaming, thinking, sleeping, writing angst-y poetry. Between homework, social drama, hormones, insecurities, family dynamics, extracurricular activities, school and all the life changes that adolescence and the teen years bring, having a clean room doesn’t seem all that important.

To parents, a messy room can appear as a symbol of rebellion, or disrespect. But for teens — who are hardwired to push the boundaries — it’s a symbol of independence, individuality and personal control.

But how do you strike a balance between giving them the freedom to manage and curate their own space, while imposing some rules and responsibilities? Certainly, it’s not my job to clean up his room.

I know from experience that threats, bribery and guilt trips won’t work (not that it’s stopped me from trying).

My dad liked to try to make his point with humour. He used to leave garden rakes and snow shovels in the hallway outside my bedroom.

I asked my mom how she coped with my slovenliness.

“There were definitely negotiations,” she explained. “But sometimes, I just had to close the door.” Twitter.com/ CooperCeline