I admit it, I’m a neat freak. Messes give me anxiety. I like my house to look nice. I prefer for everything to be in its place and put away. And when my kids were younger, it went beyond making them clean up their own messes. I wanted their bedrooms to be decorated and kept a certain way. That meant I picked out their bedding — vetoing the John Deere set that my son really wanted for his first bed — and made sure everything was organized and matching.
When they were about 13, I realized I might have made a mistake. I was being too controlling and forcing them to decorate their rooms the way I wanted. My three kids needed to have a space that felt like their own and I was being selfish asking them to live in a bedroom that only I liked. After all, I could shut their doors and pretend it didn’t exist. So I pulled a complete 180 and let them decorate how they wanted. If they wanted to express themselves and keep it to their bedrooms, fine. I could let it go.
I’m sure you can guess what happened next.
Fast forward a couple of years: My kids’ rooms looked like a crime scene. No sheets on the bed, clothes, food, and trash on the floor. Empty soda cans stuck to the rug and window sills, dried hair color in a bowl, a banana peel starting to grow things. At one point, my youngest had a colony of queen ants in his drawers while his clothes were stored on his floor. It got absolutely disgusting.
I’d take deep breaths, ask them to get rid of the trash and food, which they eventually did. And then it went right back to disaster.
But then, about a year ago, I hit a breaking point. I walked into one of their rooms and really looked around, something I’d been avoiding for years to save my sanity. The closed door theory only works for so long. They’d written on the wall. Taped things in random places then ripped the tape off, taking some of the drywall with it. There were LED lights hanging from the ceiling, which stripped off paint and sheetrock too. There was dirt from their plant obsession all over the floor and window sills and so many stains on the rug. I wanted to scream.
Things had gone too far. My kids reminded me that I’d said they could do whatever they wanted with their rooms, which was true. But never in my wildest dreams did I think they would choose to live in the filth. I lost it. I yelled and cried and gathered trash bags and demanded everything be cleaned and scrubbed.
I wanted to take a match and lighter fluid and burn the entire house down. I can deal with a few messes. But I absolutely couldn’t deal with this. My kids weren’t just living their best life in their messy rooms; they’d trashed them. They’d trashed part of my home that I was practically killing myself to pay for every month. But in their minds, I’d said it was okay.
It totally wasn’t. It was disrespectful.
I realized we’d had a major miscommunication. I had to back pedal and remind my kids that it’s one thing to decorate and have your space the way you want it, but they should have some pride and discipline to keep the things you like clean. Especially if they were living under my roof, because I’m the one who has to manage the damage, clean the rugs, replace the holes in the walls, and repaint when they leave. We spent days getting things back in shape.
Looking back, I should have managed things a little better. Maybe I should have used a different language. But I honestly didn’t think my kids, who are so capable of cleaning up after themselves and keeping the common living area neat and clean, would destroy their rooms and not give a f*ck that they were literally sleeping next to crusty bowls of old food or piles of trash.
But like all things parenting, you live and you learn. So take it from me. Don’t give your kids complete control over the way they keep their rooms. It’s too big of a risk if you ask me. It just might save you.
Diana Park is a writer who finds solitude in a good book, the ocean, and eating fast food with her kids.
