Lily on incriminating bed.I am a terrible mother. I did something, in my absolute darkest hour, housecleaning day, in complete desperation and pity (for myself). On Saturdays we clean the house. The idea is that EVERYONE participates--which they do, however…let’s be honest…I’m doing a HUGE BULK of the work, and sometimes, feeling very sorry for myself. So this Saturday I gave the kids their choirs, which involved vacuuming the downstairs and clean-up of their rooms. They insisted they were done and happily crossed the street to play tennis (our neighbors have a tennis court that we have readily adopted as our own). I checked downstairs and, horror of horrors, everything was pushed underneath their beds. When they came home I told them, not politely, that THIS WAS UNACCEPTABLE! Again, feeling sorry for myself and the cleaning that I was STILL doing.
I thought about this later and thought about how mean this actually was. I mean, they’re kids and they helped as well as they could. It reminded me of when we were kids…when we did our chores we earned “nice enoughs.” Which was our family monetary exchange that we could then turn around to buy things from our family store. But, it’s not the store that was so great it was the name of the money, “nice enough.” It was like mom saying, “Well, I probably could have done it better, but it’s done, and you’re learning about responsibility, and—quite frankly—it’s nice enough.” So, even though I may not have little monies printed out, next time we do chores, I’m going to politely excuse them to play as I tell them that it’s “nice enough.” Thanks Nana Dona for being a PERFECT mom.
10 comments:
If jamming clothes under your bed is "nice enough", will you guys adopt me?
That made me cry. In a good way.
For the record, all you Prussos are nice enough.
Brings back memories of having to use the broom under the bed when clothes were jammed too far back. It must be a kid thing. I am going to try the "nice enough" method.
Emily, I think you are forgetting the times when dad got a garbage sack and stuffed everything from the living room floor into the bag (backpacks, toys, etc.) and then made us pay to get them back. Not with cute little "nice enough" money, either. Cold hard cash. Explain that one.
Sade,
Good point. I guess that there must be a middle ground. However, dad was dealing with teenagers...mom with young, naive, and innocent children.
Come on now... Lily and Canyon know exactly what they are doing when they stuff their clothes/toys under their beds. Don't let their sad/upset (acting) little faces after you reprimand them, guilt you into letting that obvious act of fake-clean-room syndrome get to you. Stand up and be a real MOM. Like me.
Sadie, how did you expect to earn my lunch money?
All of you guys are Nice Enough! Thanks for remembering the crazy things we tried!
All of you guys are Nice Enough! Thanks for remembering the crazy things we tried!
I'll bet Isaac has been storing up his Nice Enoughs in some off shore account and is going to withdraw it someday and buy Mom and Dad's house or something.
Post a Comment