Mom puttered about in the living room, dragging toys to our bedrooms.
We watched tv.
Mom wiped off the counter tops.
We colored in our respective coloring books. (I had a wicked sweet Gettysburg one that was mine. All mine.)
Mom swept the floor.
We played make believe.
Inevitably, a piercing shout would fill the air, “WHY IS NOBODY HELPING ME CLEAN?!”
This was a common occurrence in my household growing up. My well-meaning mother would constantly be picking up after us while my siblings and I blissfully played around the house, completely unaware that she was growing increasingly agitated that nobody noticed her and lent a helping hand.
Now that I’m all grown up with kids of my own, I can sympathize with her. I have realized that I am a lot like my mother. (I am very, very thankful for that!) But because I am like her I have realized I have some of the same struggles as her.
We both struggle with asking for help. Because we’re both control freaks. (Love you mom! You know it’s true!) :)
As a kid, I never thought to help clean. I was busy playing. And even though I would ask mom to just tell me what she wanted me to do, she was never great at consistently asking for help when she needed it. And the end result would usually be an emotional eruption of anger. As a fellow mother, I now understand what it’s like to clean up after others all the time and I try to help clean at least a little bit whenever I visit. Just to help pay back all those times I didn’t help. ;) That and I love to clean!
Anyway, I know I struggle with asking for help. And I know I want to instill in my children that it’s important to clean up after themselves. So I’ve been trying to be proactive. I’ve been trying to ask Daniel (my two year old) often to help clean up his toys before we leave the house and/or before bedtime. So far he’s been willing to help all but once. He has even picked up toys without my asking. I’m sure I need to try and be more consistent than I have been so far with asking him for help, but I think we’re on the right track. I want him to realize that cleaning doesn’t take long at all and can even be fun, and I want to realize for myself that it’s okay and a good thing to ask for help. Hopefully there will be constructive growth for both of us, and Jacob can join in as he gets older. But first he needs to learn how to crawl. ;)
