If you’ve ever walked into your child’s room and thought she must belong to someone else, you are not alone. Hailey’s room has been a disaster since she was about ten, before that I cleaned it every day.
I can’t count how many times I’ve said- you can’t to (whatever) until that room is clean. Ten minutes later she comes out and tells me it’s clean. I go look, it’s neater but now everything is just piled. Why doesn’t she put things away? Why doesn’t she clean off the top of her dresser? Why doesn’t she carry her drink glasses and potato chip bags to the kitchen? How can she possibly think this is clean?
As frustrating as it is to me I have to realize, for Hailey, good enough is good enough. She doesn’t care to dust or vacuum and sees nothing wrong with all the papers that were all over the floor stacked in a pile. I tried telling her time and again, throw away things you don’t need, stop keeping everything, put your clothes in the hamper.
I’ve become a broken record and still, Hailey’s room is never my kind of clean, unless I do it. This has been a battle for years. She doesn’t care and I care too much. I finally got tired of the battle. No, I don’t want to clean her room but since I’m the only one it bothers I might as well do it.
I have insisted on some things, like dirty dishes and trash but the rest of the room I have to let go. I finally realized that her room is not a reflection of my housekeeping skills. Hailey’s room is a reflection of a teenage girl with better things to do than clean her room.
It takes a lot of willpower to just shut the door and look the other way. I will insist that she pick up after herself in the rest of the house but for now, I have to let her room be her room.
I certainly hope she learns to clean one day.