Dear young parents, someday you might miss all the mess
The clutter and chaos will eventually end — possibly sooner than you’d like. You’ll wake up someday, look around your neat and tidy home, and sadly realize it’s as exciting as a sump pump.
The bathroom looked like the aftermath of a tornado. A heaping pile of dirty clothes against the wall. The vanity cluttered with cosmetics, facial scrubs and makeup. Old towels hanging from the shower rod, threatening to jump to their death.
Last month, our normally uncluttered home was turned upside down for a week with the arrival of my 20-year-old stepdaughter, Hurricane Sarah, and her boyfriend, Bjorn. They returned home for our wedding and quickly made their presence known in our normally neat and tidy house.
My wife felt compelled to take photos of the damage to someday look back longingly on her daughter’s homecoming. We didn’t mind the mess and clutter because we knew it would soon follow Sarah and Bjorn back to North Dakota, where she is stationed with the Air Force.
Her brief stay with us airdropped memories of her messy lifestyle when she lived under our roof for the first 18 years of her life. We thought the Air Force and its endless military drills would change those sloppy habits. Uncle Sam let us down. We don’t mind.
Our parental perspective has changed since those childrearing days when cleaning up kids’ messes was a daily battle cry.
“Pick up your toys!” “Clean your room!” “Wash your dishes!” “Put that back where you found it!”
It can be exhausting. It can be exhilarating.
Those messes in our home have gone away, but so have those kids. After nearly 40 years of cleaning up after children — my two biological kids and my wife’s two kids — our empty nest now stays relatively clean and orderly. When we return home from work or errands or a bike ride, everything is exactly how we left it. Imagine that, young parents. Just a few years ago, my wife and I weren’t sure what we’d find when returning home. I felt the same way when my two kids were young and living at home. Would the sink be full of dishes? Would dirty clothes magically appear in the laundry room? Would the
kids’ stuff be scattered throughout the house like a scavenger hunt for teenage slobs? Yep, yep, and yep.
It’s different when you have to deal with this situation every day while trying to raise kids to someday clean up after themselves. When you’re in the thick of things, it feels like it may never end. The messes. The spills. The collected junk. The teenage tornados. All of it.
I’m here to tell young parents that, yes, it will someday end and you may miss all that untidiness on a daily basis. Or maybe not. It’s different for every parent. For me, someone with OCD tendencies, I don’t miss the messes, the chaos and the daily disarray. I’ve spent too much time cleaning up after unappreciative kids who were oblivious to their messiness.
Other parents may feel differently about this topic. Maybe their glory days took place when they were knee-deep in kiddie chaos, with late homework
assignments, after school activities, permission slips, bored siblings, and BandAids for skinned knees.
For these parents, who are now alone with each other and without children in the home, an empty nest may be a frightening reality. I don’t feel this way but I know older parents who do.
Over the past few weeks, I experienced another
shade of the same topic. My wife and I used our basement as a staging area for all of our wedding decorations to spruce up our big day. For those few weeks, our normally drab and musty basement came to life with stacks of vibrant memories, flashy store-bought items, and homemade table centerpieces.
It brimmed with a messy, scattered collection of excitement and anticipation. Sort of like parenting. We couldn’t wait to see how our only child together — our wedding — would turn out. Would it be a spoiled brat? A prima donna? A deadbeat loser? Or our absolute pride and joy? (It was the last one.)
Nonetheless, after our special day came and went, our basement soon returned to its drab normalcy, with everything back in place as if nothing happened. It now reeks more of melancholy than muskiness. Sort of like our homes after our kids leave to begin their journey as adults on their own.
For those parents who are now dealing with all the tornado-like messes and aggravating hassles that kids bring to any home, I’m here to remind you that it will eventually end. Possibly sooner than you’d like. You’ll wake up someday, look around your neat and tidy home, and sadly realize it’s exciting as a sump pump.