Cleanliness is Next To...

I guess I know why I'm such a naughty girl, then.

I hate housework. Loathe it. Have I mentioned that before? I like having a clean house, but I would lose my mind if all I did during my waking hours was clean, and trust me that is what would have to be done for my house to be clean.

I think that children learn best by example in this case. My kids are lazy, though and they have started telling me to clean up after them. If they weren't sick right now I'd be making a lesson in chores. My daughter knocked over a pile of towels that I had just folded right out of the dryer and told me to pick them up. Since she spent all night vomiting and hasn't been able to eat anything today I let it slide just by telling her that she can't talk to me like that and that she needed to learn to clean up her own messes.

I think I'm too nice. I'm really a screwed up little person. I apologize to other people when no apology is needed and my oldest has started doing this. I drop something and he tells me he's sorry. Whoops.

In being too nice I've made my children a little selfish. They are highly demanding and equally lazy. If they don't want to do something it usually means a tantrum. I take on chores that could and should be accomplished by my preschoolers. It adds more stress for me, but I honestly don't think to make them do it until later. It is just habit for me to vacuum up the cereal they've smashed into my rug, and pick up the laundry they scatter everywhere, and put their toys away, and pick up their trash...

When I was a kid my dad was very strict. He had some pretty insane rules that to this day I don't really understand. We couldn't make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich using the wheat bread, cold cuts couldn't go on white bread. We had to use half a slice of cheese per sandwich. Yes, half, as in open a slice of Kraft Singles and fold it in half and put the other half back in the refrigerator. I remember a lot of shouting from the kitchen when this rule wasn't followed. We also weren't allowed more than one hot thing a day, no more than one bowl of cereal, and things such as Pop-tarts were strictly for my parents to eat and carried heavy punishment if we got into them. My husband remembers these rules, back when we were dating he helped me buy a mini-refrigerator that was kept in my bedroom closed and stocked with my food. I went from a size 0 to a size 4 after six months of dating him. My dad was always very frustrated with how quickly food was eaten, he refused to spend more than $100 a month on groceries for a family of five (but always had the latest computer technology as soon as it came out) and when I'd say I was hungry he'd take me to the kitchen cupboard and show me that there was still a can of condensed tomato soup in there. When he said the cupboards had to be bare before he'd buy more food he meant it.

So, its no wonder that I go to great lengths to keep food in my house and have a love of cooking and baking. We spend around $400 a month for groceries for our family of soon to be six, and even that amount limits options a great deal. But I refuse to have the kind of rules I grew up with. My kids eat more than cereal, peanut butter sandwiches, hot pockets and kool-aid. I'm lucky to have a daughter who loves fresh lettuce, carrots, broccoli, grapes and apples and boys who love fresh apples, oranges, grapes and strawberries by the barrel. My kids aren't likely to be anemic or have people spread rumors that they have an eating disorder. My kids are healthy, and providing them healthy options is worth the price.

I mentioned my dad and his rules on food to expand on why I think I've been raising lazy kids. My dad also had another rule called Spotless Day. Every Saturday in my childhood for as long as I can remember was Spotless Day, and my brothers and I were absolutely not allowed to do anything but clean, and clean until my dad said we could stop. I don't remember ever seeing my parents clean. I DO remember my dad throwing dishes, laundry, his shoes, and his empty bottles of Sunkist against the wall. I was raised feeling like a slave. I'm sure my brothers felt like that too. I'm sure my dad thought he was teaching us responsibility or something, but he did more harm than good. The message he sent was clear: When you're the adult you can be lazy and do what you want and eat what you want and make your kids do the housework for you. I was a very organized teenager, and I still have some OCD tendencies about cleaning, but I allow more clutter than I should simply because I hate cleaning so much and I feel guilty expecting someone else to do it for me. I barely even ask my husband to clean. My "plan" was always to grow up, get married, have kids and happily take care of my little family. I guess I thought I'd like cleaning more if I was doing it out of love instead of because I was forced to.

There's my problem. I think that part of me is so terrified that I'll do something to make my kids resent me that I have trouble finding balance. There has to be balance in raising kids, and it is a very delicate one. If I constantly ride them, they are sure to resent me for it, but if I am always doing everything for them they will never learn how to take care of themselves and be responsible adults.

If my dad is one extreme, my mother is the other. She rarely leaves her bed, and it has been that way for as long as I can remember. But she is my dad's polar opposite. She wants to baby everyone where my dad wants to push. My two brothers still live at home getting a free ride because my parents don't agree on where to draw the line. One of my brothers doesn't even know how to drive. He never goes anywhere, his life is the internet. He's even more of a hermit than my bedridden mother. I feel sad for them. Sure, free room and board, free internet and satellite television, free meals, free pain pills from my mom...but no life. At least one brother has a job. Hell, he makes more money than my husband by nearly half and has very little he's responsible for that requires his income. It kind of pisses me off actually. I think some financial obligations would do him a world of good. But I digress like my usual rabbit trailing self...

I guess the good thing is that I recognize behaviors in myself that could be setting my kids up for disaster. The hard thing is correcting them. For instance, I still apologize for things all the time, and so does my son. I don't even realize I am doing it until I notice him do it. Then I feel terrible for making him feel like the world is on his little shoulders and like every mistake that happens in front of him is somehow his fault. In my case it might be a good idea to remove the word "sorry" from my vocabulary for a while. I can go with the more formal "I apologize," when it is needed and bite my cheek every time I start with a "I'm so---" We'll see how that goes.