Mission Impossible!

Why do they make me do it? First of all...let’s go back in time. My mom was a yelly Mom. We were constantly doing things that pissed her off…’Pick this up, put this stuff away, stop fighting’. It was one of her shining accomplishments..having the endurance to continue to put us in our place when we were unruly, which was all the fucking time apparently.

I find myself being...THE EXACT SAME. All I do, most hours of the day is look around my house at all of the stuff scattered around the house that belongs in a different area….clean it up time and time again, countless times explain in a normal voice that ‘such and such doesn’t belong here’, ‘keep all the pieces together’...It eventually escalates to me saying, ‘if someone doesn’t come and pick this up I’m throwing it out’....eventually it becomes (cue demonic voice) ‘ENOUGH OF THIS FUCKING SHIT!!!’. Where do we stand on the shouting thing? For me, it’s like statistical probability. It’s going to happen, at some point, it’s inevitable. I feel like it is incumbent upon me to remind them (albeit constantly) that they are not the only people that live in this home...and by extension, the world around them.

I have come upon articles about the power of effective communication blah blah blah...but can we be honest? There’s only so many times I can step over, avoid, clean up, trip over the hungry hungry hippo balls before I’m going to lose my mind.

I don’t want to be their butler who allows them to make mess after mess and like a martyr just cleans up behind them to the end of my days and cries into my Chardonnay. I want them to know that what they do or don’t do has a real world impact on those around them….is this a silly connection to make? Does shouting at your kids screw them up?

I have also read those wonderful messages of ‘who cares about your messy house, enjoy your kids while you can’. Ok, what the fuck? ….Ok, again...what? I want to understand this? So you’re saying I should just let me kids destroy all of the things that are of any value to me because if I don’t then I’m prioritizing ‘things’ over my childrens well being and who wouldn’t feel terribly guilty about that?! ...The truth is there is no middle ground with kids around....it's either immaculate because you have company over or it's a bomb shelter...and it happens in .1 nonoseconds. Then if my house looks like a nuclear test site I should also feel guilty for not looking after our ‘things’ like we preach to our children all the time….So are we fucked either way? This is motherhood.

I’m gonna stick with the route that helps me hold on to some semblance of sanity. 'Things put away' is really all I’ve got left at this point and I just need those little shits (loves of my life) to stay on message.

Xo Kristin

#parenting #cleaning #messyhouse #shouting #momfail #momguilt #children