July 26, 2007

To clean or not to clean, that is the question???

My youngest son Brad recently went to my sisters house to visit for a week. Considering he spends a lot of time in the pigsty he calls a room, I never get the chance to get in there and really CLEAN. Ya, I know he is a big boy (15) and should do it himself…and he would, but it wouldn’t be like a true MOTHER clean. Brads idea of clean is to put everything you can under the bed and hide the rest in drawers. He could care less about clean sheets and you better forget ALL about dusting and vacuuming as well because those words aren’t even in his vocabulary. I started with the computer desk…lets just put it this way, I am surprised something didn’t jump out at me. Not to mention, the layer of dust on things he hasn’t touched in months yet has seen fit to continue to let sit, undisturbed, until he had to move it out of the way to make room for more stuff he doesn’t use. 13 pencils with broken leads, 8 tops to water bottles, playing cards…at least 100 of them from various decks and none of them enough for a full deck. 4 pens that didn’t work, old homework that never made it to school or was graded and never thrown away, wires, TONS of wires….too what??? we don’t know..CD’s everywhere, some in cases, most not. Old socks shoved down on the side of the desk along with a few stray potato chips. The thing I don’t get is, he DOES have a trashcan in his room but is too lazy to walk 4 feet and throw things away…and if he does fill up his trashcan, I have to tell him to empty it???? Money….change everywhere on the floor, dresser, desk, nightstand…I think this may be a man thing. When my oldest son moved out, I collected quite a large amount of money from off his floor and my DBF Michael, well, he has quite a collection on his floor too:) I then washed his comforter and changed the sheets, vacuumed, dusted and I was done…..4 hours later. I was sweating from head to toe…that may have been a bigger workout than going to the gym. Am I the only mother to attempt something like this and was I wrong to not make him do it himself?? At any rate, it made me feel better to look at a clean room, even if it wont last for long!

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've got three boys, the oldest ten and a half. I struggle with getting them to undertake basic straigtening up and putting away. I have to take my share of the blame though LOL! Cleaning is not my favorite activity and I'm a pack rat which means I have too much stuff too.

If you find the magic key to get them to clean, let me know.

Anonymous said...

Oh, every mom struggles with this one! I'm having trouble with my 17 year old stepson about it. If it's any comfort, my youngest son and my oldest stepson became "clean freaks" when they moved out, and you can actually go to their houses to visit without wearing the full protection that the bomb squad wears! No you were not wrong to do it yourself. It's your house! Yes, you could have made him do it, but think of the aggravation for both of you LOL! Hang on. He will grow up.

Twisted Cinderella said...

Oh no! I was hoping this wouldn't be my duty when Princess got older! LOL I did her room this week!

TeaMouse said...

I have to really resist the urge to go into my kids rooms.

Last year when my daughter went away for a week, I decided to refinish her dresser and to some redocorating. I think this is all because I wanted to see it clean and neat.

I haven't done it for my son in a long time and I think his room would be worse than yours. Both my kids have this habit of taking beverages into their rooms and when I run out of glasses I know they each have a stack.

Now that my son is turning 18, I am not sure how to get him to comply with the clean room. I think I've had this feeling for awhile as I don't seem to push him as much as his sister to keep it clean.

I'm afraid if I got started it would be an 8 hour job!

I can see why you decided to do the cleaning - sometimes it's nice to see it clean if only for a short time.

I like Shelly's comment - maybe there is hope for us yet. I was worried what kinds of dishes I'd have to eat out of when I went to their houses.