I hate cleaning my room. When I was younger, cleaning my room was like a life sentence without parole. First, there came my massive piles of clothes. Some of them could have been hardly worn and had not seen the light of day in a few years. Others looked so dirty and disgusting that it is no wonder they had been lying in a heap for a few weeks. I mean there are times when you won't touch your dirty things with a ten-foot pole. Then there are endless amounts of papers, trinkets, toys, books, games, etc, to think about. Of course, when this was all finished, and all I wanted to do was plop onto the couch for some R&R, my mom would hand me the vacuum and a dust cloth. AARRRGGHHH!!
It is my opinion that many teens have the same view on cleaning their room as I do. The task is a daunting one, usually with years of accumulated stuff to sort through. And that does take a very long time. I remember one summer, I decided to clean my room - really clean my room. Three days later, I came out. After my eyes readjusted to natural light, I counted about two-dozen garbage bags of old papers, magazines, trinkets, toys, clothes, and half-used school supplies. Of course, I threw about half of the stuff back in my closet for later, and the other half went to the trash.
I remember feeling a few different things when this was over. I was relieved, for one. I had conquered my most challenging feat to date, and once again, I was "queen of the castle"!
Or was I? I also remember feeling a small twinge of loss. I had just thrown out half of the stuff I had collected over a few years. Essentially, I had thrown out a piece of me. I tried to tell myself that it was all trash that I had not looked at in years anyway. I mean, that's how my parents saw it. But sometimes I would wonder what happened to that really cool McDonald's toy I thought I had put on my dresser. Then, when I realized I had thrown it away, a spark of anger and sadness flashed through me and I regretted that I ever cleaned up!
When I think about my room, I see it as a place of quiet solitude. In fact, all I need is a refrigerator and microwave and I could literally live in my room. My room is definitely a good place to seek refuge from the rigor of daily life. My television, and stereo are there, my collections of porcelain dolls and unicorns are there, my books, clothes, all of my favorite stuff. When my parents tell me to throw half of it out, well, NO! In fact, if my parents spent some time in my room, they would probably learn a lot about my different interests.
In talking with others about their rooms, I have found they have the same kinds of emotions that I do. My boss at work, Lisa, told me that her sixteen-year-old son usually has a messy room. His biggest problem was leaving his dirty clothes all over the floor. Lisa said that finally she decided to just refuse to do his laundry if it was not put in the laundry room. Presto! The problem corrected itself very quickly.
Even so, Lisa is perplexed about a particular stuffed animal her son has had ever since he was born. "What's wrong with having a 'binky'?" I asked. "Well, nothing�I guess. But he's sixteen and he's kind of grown out of it - hasn't he?" she said. I then told her that even though he doesn't play with it anymore, it is his binky. "He has memories attached to it. Don't you remember when you were a kid and you always carried around your favorite doll? You gave it a name, a voice, a personality. You made pretend that it was your baby, or your best friend. You loved that smelly old rag, and you cried when your mom took it from your room and threw it in the washing machine. Then, when your son was just a little tyke, you thought it was so cute when he did the same thing with his toy. But, why is it that now he is too old for his buddy?" "Well," Lisa said after a minute, "it looks so dirty, and it just sits there on his bed. I wonder what his girlfriends think when they see it?"
Throughout my childhood, the clean-status of my room was always a heated topic around our house. My parents tried every thing to get me to clean. They would bribe me with a reward, punish me by not letting me out until the job was done, beg me and tell me how much more they would love me if I just cleaned it, and, when I was younger, they even helped me put things away.
While this nagging was constant, it seemed always to intensify when there was company expected. I never really understood why this mattered. I figured if visitors want to see my room, then I should let them see it as it always is.
I think now I finally have an understanding of where they were coming from. Living in a dorm room with another person has forced me to be tidy. I don't want my roommate to think of me as a messy slob, or have conflicts arise over my mess (funny how I didn't care if I had these problems with my parents). Moreover, there are a lot of people who walk by the door every day and glimpse into the rooms. I do it all the time. When I see a bad looking room I say to myself, "What a sty! Look at all that stuff all over the place." Well, maybe they have the same problem as I do at home. There is just too much to know where to begin. Those dorm rooms are pretty small after you finish moving in. But, I have to say it is amazing the amount of things you can fit into a dorm room: televisions, computers, refrigerators, microwaves, and even small couches! And then one has to think about where to put all those darned clothes.
But, usually I don't take this into consideration when I criticize others messes. I often ask the simpler question, "Didn't their parents ever make them clean anything?" Ah yes, it always goes back to the parents, doesn't it?
People have a universal belief that a parents reputation depends entirely on how their children act. If a child does poorly in school then we assume that the parents must not care about grades. If a child is rebellious, then we assume that the parents must not discipline that child correctly. And, if a child is messy, then the parents must be as well. There is a lot of credibility to this. Children learn from their parents how to behave, usually by actions and not words.
Of course, I didn't see it this way when I was younger. Then, it was nagging, it was annoying, and it hardly ever worked. I would usually think of an excuse like "I'm tired," "I have homework," "It will take too long." Being a teenager, I was really busy, and it seemed more difficult to keep the mess under control. In fact, I have seen it put most succinctly by teenager Lindsay Scott in an internet article when she said, "I just would rather be really busy and not have time to do all this (cleaning), than to have all my free time and be the neatest person in the world*."
Well, being busy is a pretty good excuse for a teenager. But I don't think that was usually my main motive. After all, this is my stuff we are talking about here! And I am not about to let anyone tell me what to do with my stuff, not even my parents. Besides, I am a good kid otherwise. I get good grades, have good friends, and wear nice clothes. My room, though, is mine. So back off. And leave my binky on the bed where you found it, please.
Mostly every kid rebels against their parents in one way or another, this is my area. Let's face it: my room is messy because it makes my parents fire-spitting mad. They tend to go absolutely bonkers when they see me watching television in my room and doing nothing else in the way of straightening. But then again, this exhibition of rage is understandable. They expect a certain amount of respect from me, since it was they who brought me into the world, changed my dirty diapers and all that. My parents only want others to see the best in me like they themselves do. Maybe next time I go home, I will clean my room. Maybe even without my parents asking first. I do owe them that much. But I still really hate cleaning my room.
Kathryn M. Schaffert, 1999