I am hardly the authority on being a "clean parent", since I'm almost certain that I do not keep as clean a house as I should and I am definitely not a parent. This entry has to do with ancient history and my perceived ability to connect the proverbial dots after all these years.
Once upon a time, I was a budding adolescent with a so-called friend that will be dubbed "Amy" for purposes of anonymity. My parents were hard working-class professional, college-educated folks and were running two businesses; one at home (with bona fide customers and hours of "dawn to dusk") and the other "in town" which was 30-40 minutes away from the old homestead (also serving bona fide customers). Both businesses ran seven days per week, and my parents were dedicated. I'm not certain that ethic was learned in college. It was simply ingrained in who they were.
So one night I held a slumber party and invited all of my girlfriends. Amy was there, and she was in rare form, as usual. But hey, we all had a great time playing games, building blanket tents, and giggling into all hours of the night. At this point, I must reveal my age range by stating that the games we played did not involve a console and a television. In fact, our family had only two working televisions. One was color and it resided downstairs in the living room. A smaller black and white version lived upstairs and my dad eventually hooked up the Pong game that was handed down to us kids to the upstairs set. Both televisions only picked up the three major networks via antenna. Pong may have even been in the picture at the time but if it was, none of my girlfriends were much interested in it. Atari was the new rage, along with Pac Man and Space Invaders. It was quite boring to "bat" a virtual ping pong ball back and forth on the old black and white...
There were at least seven of us in this slumber party. When I think back on it, I wonder how my mom even tolerated us for one hour, much less the entire evening. And of course this sleepover was held on a Friday night so we could all sleep in. I am certain that I am void of the tolerance required to put up with this number of adolescent girls on top of the business responsibilities, not to mention the child-rearing and oh by the way, the marriage.
So when Monday morning came and Amy was telling anyone and everyone at school who would listen that there was "an inch of dust" on everything within my home, I was mortified. Only mildly annoyed with Amy as she was who she was, I was more concerned with what everyone must think of me and my family in general based on this "inch of dust" (which I swear to this day did not exist - not an inch thick, anyway). Omigosh, I was sure that every student in the sixth grade would go home and tell their parents about the "filth" in my home (that wasn't really there). These parents in turn would visit one or both of our businesses and spread the word amongst all of our customers! Soon the entire county would know of our pig sty.
As only an adolescent daughter could, I turned most of my anger and frustration about this maddening situation toward my mother. She should have done a better job of cleaning the house, plain and simple! It's her responsibility. After all, Amy's mother obviously kept her home spotless (never mind that Amy's mother was a stay at home mom).
This blast from the past smacked me an hour ago after I had cleaned both the top of the refrigerator and the blades of the ceiling fan in the kitchen. I have put these disgusting tasks off for some time now, succeeding only in exacerbating the situation and making my task that much harder. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's probably been a good year since either place has seen a dust rag. And that quarter inch of dust that had piled up over that timeframe was a bitch to clean. Am I going to add it my list of weekly chores now? Not likely, as I can think of a million other ways to better utilize my precious time.
There are several things that I learned from this comparison between past and present, including:
Once upon a time, I was a budding adolescent with a so-called friend that will be dubbed "Amy" for purposes of anonymity. My parents were hard working-class professional, college-educated folks and were running two businesses; one at home (with bona fide customers and hours of "dawn to dusk") and the other "in town" which was 30-40 minutes away from the old homestead (also serving bona fide customers). Both businesses ran seven days per week, and my parents were dedicated. I'm not certain that ethic was learned in college. It was simply ingrained in who they were.
So one night I held a slumber party and invited all of my girlfriends. Amy was there, and she was in rare form, as usual. But hey, we all had a great time playing games, building blanket tents, and giggling into all hours of the night. At this point, I must reveal my age range by stating that the games we played did not involve a console and a television. In fact, our family had only two working televisions. One was color and it resided downstairs in the living room. A smaller black and white version lived upstairs and my dad eventually hooked up the Pong game that was handed down to us kids to the upstairs set. Both televisions only picked up the three major networks via antenna. Pong may have even been in the picture at the time but if it was, none of my girlfriends were much interested in it. Atari was the new rage, along with Pac Man and Space Invaders. It was quite boring to "bat" a virtual ping pong ball back and forth on the old black and white...
There were at least seven of us in this slumber party. When I think back on it, I wonder how my mom even tolerated us for one hour, much less the entire evening. And of course this sleepover was held on a Friday night so we could all sleep in. I am certain that I am void of the tolerance required to put up with this number of adolescent girls on top of the business responsibilities, not to mention the child-rearing and oh by the way, the marriage.
So when Monday morning came and Amy was telling anyone and everyone at school who would listen that there was "an inch of dust" on everything within my home, I was mortified. Only mildly annoyed with Amy as she was who she was, I was more concerned with what everyone must think of me and my family in general based on this "inch of dust" (which I swear to this day did not exist - not an inch thick, anyway). Omigosh, I was sure that every student in the sixth grade would go home and tell their parents about the "filth" in my home (that wasn't really there). These parents in turn would visit one or both of our businesses and spread the word amongst all of our customers! Soon the entire county would know of our pig sty.
As only an adolescent daughter could, I turned most of my anger and frustration about this maddening situation toward my mother. She should have done a better job of cleaning the house, plain and simple! It's her responsibility. After all, Amy's mother obviously kept her home spotless (never mind that Amy's mother was a stay at home mom).
This blast from the past smacked me an hour ago after I had cleaned both the top of the refrigerator and the blades of the ceiling fan in the kitchen. I have put these disgusting tasks off for some time now, succeeding only in exacerbating the situation and making my task that much harder. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's probably been a good year since either place has seen a dust rag. And that quarter inch of dust that had piled up over that timeframe was a bitch to clean. Am I going to add it my list of weekly chores now? Not likely, as I can think of a million other ways to better utilize my precious time.
There are several things that I learned from this comparison between past and present, including:
- I have the utmost respect for my mother and fully realize that she did the best that she could. In fact, she was better then than I am today (with merely a professional career and no kids; minus the home-based business that practically required her attention 24/7).
- It took me over 20 years to see this by applying it to my own circumstances.
- I realize that Amy grossly exaggerated her nasty little tale about the state of my home.
- I should not expect any future child of mine to appreciate everything that I do and fully realize that it may take over 20 years (if ever) for said child to fully understand the crazy life of a 30-something living smack in the middle of the fast-paced Information Age.
I don't want to spend my days cleaning endlessly and certainly not obsessively in the hope that someone will notice and appreciate it along the way. I suppose my mom didn't buy into that either. There are so many other things in life that could be enjoyable (including having children to raise; or not) that I am now certain to endure, if I ever have a daughter, the same stigma that my mom received.
To that, I'm just going to have to give my best shrug of the shoulders and a hearty, "oh well". It is what it is. Just as my mom most assuredly did, as she absolutely should have. Just as all of the Amy's of the world simply are who they are.
