Messy vs. Neat

My second- and third-born children are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to keeping their rooms neat, and I've often wondered why--they share the same gene pool, they grew up in the same environment, and yet they are nothing alike in this particular area.  No matter how many times I asked my son to clean his room or pitched in and cleaned it myself, it just didn't stay clean.  By the time he was in as in high school, I gave up hounding him about it.  Occasionally, he took it upon himself to clean things up, but most of the time, you could barely see the floor--it was covered with piles of dirty clothes, stacks of clean clothes, books, sneakers, candy wrappers, and school papers.  I think he actually liked the way his room looked and felt when it was clean, but it didn't matter enough to him to keep it that way since the mess didn't really bother him.   In contrast, my daughter's room is a model of organization.  She makes her bed every morning, her dresser drawers hold neat stacks of clothes, her closet is organized by color, her bookshelves are carefully arranged and maintained.  When she comes home from a trip, she unpacks immediately and puts everything away.  She can't understand why anyone wouldn't do this or how a person could take off clothes and leave them on the floor instead of putting them away.  Thinking about this difference between two of my kids made me realize something.  As our kids grow up and leave home, it's easy for us parents to blame ourselves when one of them is in distress.  We're quick to worry that maybe we didn't do enough as parents or maybe we did too much.  Even when it's not quite rational, we fall into the trap of thinking that if we'd just been better parents, our children wouldn't be suffering.  But if I think just about Darton's room vs. Em's room, I can easily see that it wasn't anything I did or didn't do as a parent that made one of them messy and the other neat--it's just the way they are. So maybe instead of getting caught up in blaming ourselves, the best thing we parents can do is to help our kids through the hard times they will inevitably face as adults, whether this means helping them clean up a mess to find something they've lost, encouraging them to relax and take things in stride, or simply reminding them how very much they are loved.

Ben's Room

Before

During

After

My oldest son's first apartment was tiny, so when he moved out last summer, his old room stayed much the same as it was all through his college years.  When he moved into his new, much larger place in May, he was still teaching and taking grad classes, so he didn't get around to moving all of the non-essential items out of his old room until last night.  Now, I know it was gradual, and I know I should be glad to have the extra space, but it's still not easy walking past that empty room today.  The previous owners used this little room as an indoor greenhouse.  In our early years here, it was the kids' playroom.  I'm not sure what it will be next.  Just a guest room?  A little office?  A playroom again when there are grandchildren?  Whatever else it becomes, it will always have its door open for Ben to spend the night any time he wants to.

Pieces of His Past

I was in my middle child's room changing the sheets after my mom's recent visit and made the mistake of hanging around in there for a little while looking at some of the things he left behind when he made his move to Rochester last fall.   I wasn't deliberately trying to make myself sad, but take a look at the picture:

This is the top shelf of his bookcase.  It holds artifacts of his whole life: favorite stuffed animals, his Kids' NIV Bible, a hacky sack, books I vividly remember reading to him at bedtime when he was in early elementary school, books he read himself during the summers of his college years, an old inhaler from his cross-country days, a pack of Buffalo Bills playing cards, and a commemorative glass mug from his college graduation.  Every time he comes home for a visit, I suggest that maybe he could go through some of the stuff in his room and decide what he wants to keep and what he's ready to part with.  I wouldn't mind getting rid of some of the clutter, but I really can't imagine going into his room and not seeing these pieces of his past on the bookshelf.  Suggestions?  If you're farther along on this path than I am, what did you do?  If you're not here yet, what clear-headed advice do you have?  For now (and probably for quite a while) these things will stay where they are, and I'll go on being happy and sad each time I look at them.

Wilbur

Wilbur arrived one spring day when Ben was about eighteen months old. An eccentric aunt had put him in a big cardboard box and used up a big chunk of her meager means to mail him to her first grandnephew.  Ben fell in love with him immediately. He drank his bottle leaning up against Wilbur; he sat in Wilbur's lap and read books to himself.  He chose to be Wilbur for Halloween the following year.  Since Wilbur was so big, he didn't often go places with us physically, but he was always with us in spirit.  When we grocery-shopped, Ben would call out, "Ra-a-a-w fish.  Wilbur wants ra-a-a-w fish" when we passed the seafood section.  When we were visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Pennsylvania, and it started to storm, Ben would frown and say, "Wilbur hates thunderstorms." Wilbur quickly became more than a favorite stuffed animal, he was one of the family.  So when most of the other stuffed animals got packed up and moved to the attic when Ben got older, Wilbur stayed happily in the corner of the room.  He tried to sneak along when Ben was packing for college but didn't make the cut.  Instead he waited patiently for Ben to return.  Ben's first apartment after graduation was very small, and there was no room for a big polar bear in Ben's tiny bedroom, so Wilbur stayed behind again.  But this week, Ben moved to a new place, a place of his own, a place with plenty of room for old friends. And once again, Wilbur is sitting happily in the corner of Ben's room.

The Things They've Left Behind

One of the things I’ve noticed is that when your kids move out, they don’t move out all at once.  It happens in stages.  They head off to college with most of their clothes, but otherwise, their rooms look pretty much the same.  Then they might move from the dorm to a townhouse or off-campus housing, and they take a few more of their things.  After college, they make the big move to their first apartment, and they take even more of their things.  Their rooms look different now; they are heartbreakingly neat and silent, but they are not empty.  They house old clothes and books and stuffed animals.  There are still boxes of treasures under their beds and posters on their walls. The things that remain are things neither they nor I am ready to part with.  So for now, I’m leaving their rooms the way the way they are.  Eventually, though, I’ll have to go through the things they’ve left behind.  Clothes they’ve outgrown and old college textbooks will be easy to box up and give away.  But what am I going to do with all the bits and pieces of their childhoods?