It’s such a great expression—sometimes with the terrible connotation of firing everyone and starting anew. I find myself understanding this platitude like never before. Because strangely after literally cleaning my house this week, I’d like to figuratively clean it of all of the people living here. Let me start from the beginning.
I am lucky enough to have a wonderful woman that comes to clean my house each week. She is an angel straight from heaven and every week I am grateful to see her and even more grateful when she leaves me with a clean house. I realize this is a great luxury. I did not grow up with someone cleaning our house. In fact, at the ripe old age of twelve, while my mother worked full time it was my weekly chore to clean the house from top to bottom. Like really clean it—bathrooms, floors, baseboards, you name it. Upon completion of this “chore” I was rewarded with my weekly allowance. The amount—even by the standards of a thousand years ago when I was twelve was NOTHING—but I give my mother full credit, she was a genius, she did have a housekeeper—me.
Fast forward to our current situation and my sweet housekeeper is at her house while we practice social distancing. I find myself returned to my pre-teen role of housekeeper. After two weeks of this job I cannot believe that this sweet woman returns here week after week. Although I believe she and I have a wonderful relationship, the other people that live here—are filthy people. I am generally concerned for their health and well-being as they move on into the world. Each week as I clean this house, we are fortunate enough to live in I find myself filled with feelings of rage and anger. I am, as the kids say, salty—before, during and after the entire process. I apparently don’t hide my feelings well because most of my housemates steer clear of me or scamper when I approach during cleaning day.
I’m trying to figure out why this task brings out such extreme feelings. Maybe it’s because I can’t imagine that people that share my genetic material think it’s acceptable to live like this? Perhaps I feel like a failure as a mother because I think that some of my children are severely lacking in the area of basic human hygiene?
It’s a telling process. I have one child who apparently believes he’s already living at a fraternity house and “cleaning up” your room involves shoving piles into areas that are not readily visible. Another of my offspring is relatively neat, but confused about the difference between a bed sheet and a comforter—where have I gone wrong? I also have what I am going to diagnose as a stage one hoarder. This child has all kinds of things “saved” in her room. Things that are “important” like fifteen empty toilet paper rolls—Jesus take the wheel! I mean she may be on to something and it’s possible after another few weeks of home schooling that I will regret throwing those TP rolls away since I’ll probably need them for a STEAM project.
What I have discovered about myself is that I like my family much better when I don’t have to clean up after them. Let’s be honest I clean up after them all week long, even with the gift of a housekeeper. I already knew that they don’t know how to put anything away, they have a hard time “remembering” which items belong to them and where they go—it’s confusing. I also already knew that their definition of clean and my definition of clean are not even remotely the same.
But the deep clean brought us to new levels of understanding. Week one brought us all together by me spending quality time with each child in their perspective rooms explaining why they are disgusting animals and I am right. I think it brought some real bonding moments. Week two was slightly better because we had removed the initial layer of filth. Unfortunately, it also brought great frustration as none of the lessons I so graciously imparted on week one seem to have been absorbed in any way. I don’t understand why cups of water are entering my son’s room when we have a no food or drink policy, but I am especially baffled as to why said cups NEVER seem to return once they do enter illegally. It’s like a weird cup purgatory.
There are so many things I do not understand. I don’t understand why my children apparently want to live like this—don’t they want better for themselves?? I don’t understand why they are surprised by my anger when I’ve explained my expectations at least TEN THOUSAND times. And my expectations are LOW—like if the health department came here, they wouldn’t kick us out of our own home low. I just don’t understand. But I am determined to use this opportunity to help my children form better habits. To understand the importance of clean sheets and removing dust and debris from your living space and how scrubbing a toilet can actually be a great stress reliever. I can tell by the eye rolls and the scowls that they are excited for this new phase of learning. We’re all pretty excited to see what week three brings—my guess is more cups!!