Ya can't win. Nope, you just can't. I finally got one of my teenagers to figure out how to turn a water faucet on in a sink full of dirty dishes (they know how to turn it on in the shower, all right — there they don't know how to turn it off) but when it comes to washing dishes, it seems they think the kitchen sink is just a place for dishes to accumulate and that somehow they get clean there all by themselves. Rather than go through the hassle of trying to get someone else to do dishes, I always did them myself, until one day I just rebelled and figured I didn't dirty them all so why should I have to wash them all. (I got that philosophy straight from the kids themselves. Make them eat their words, I told myself.) But as I watched one of them pour dishwashing detergent on one plate at a time and then run the water full force five minutes for each plate, the economical side of me went berserk seeing all that water go to waste. As I tried to demonstrate how to wash with less water running, I found myself back where I started —doing it myself, my way. Now if I could just let the kids do it their way I might get some help, but the water bill would be astronomical. So who lands up getting the job right back in her hands? You got it— good ole Mama. ---, Then there's the case of trying to get the kids to clean up their rooms, which usually look like a disaster just struck. If I do the laundry for them, I fold everything neatly and put it in the proper drawers, only to go into the room the next day and see everything strewn all over. Why? Evidently the first shirt picked wasn't suitable for that day, so out came another and another until the right shirt is found to suit the mood that day; but do the rejected shirts get folded and put back in the drawers? Of course not. They just join the rumpled pile of clothes left on the floor from the night before! And socks! You wouldn't believe where I've found dirty socks ... under the bed, in a closet, behind the dresser; I even found one once on top of a lamp. I think when they take their socks off at night they must just kick them into the air and let them fall where they may. Although I nag them and nag them to straighten up their rooms, my requests(?) go unheeded. Then they can't figure why I'll say no when they ask if a friend can stay overnight. If I tell them they could have someone over if they straighten their room first, they tell me not to worry, their friends' rooms look the same as theirs. It doesn't even embarrass them, while I want to hide my head in shame. What really kills me, though, is when they bring the friend over first and ask me right in front of him if he can sleep over. Of course this is usually late enough at night for it to be an inconvenience for the friend's parents to pick him up and besides they were already informed that he'd be sleeping over our house. So what's a mother to do? Run upstairs, try to straighten up real quick and make the best of it, it seems. After all, they're only my values, certainly not theirs, so what's to get uptight about (another of the kids' philosophies.) But someday they'll be grown up and out of the house and I'll be wishing to find a dirty sock in some forsaken corner, so they tell me. As I said, ya can't win!
*Terri the Typesetter
September 16, 1984
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