Welcome to round three of the Parenting Roundabout podcast for the week of July third.
I'm Terry Morrow, and I'm here with Nicole Radics Hello, and cathayin
Hole Echo. Hello. We're moms of teens and young adults, and when
it comes to parenting, we've been there, done that, bought the T
shirt. But we're still waiting for that day when we'll reach the finish line
and have no further need to lay down in a dark room with a wet
rag over our eyes worrying about something or other. Wednesday's complaint day here on
Parenting Roundabout, and today we are complaining about whether it's okay to clean our
kids room? And also who asked you? So this came from TikTok.
I am not a TikTok or so other than the TikTok's that wind up on
Instagram and Facebook which I then watch COMPOSI assume we found this our TikTok correspondent
Nicolas telling us about this video. I did. I did. So.
Apparently a mom went in and you know, cleaned the child's room, which
was quite a mess. And of course that's yes, yes, a teen
yes. But then, of course, as always people have something to say
about it, you know, in terms of respecting boundaries and um uh,
you know, having the child developed some responsibility, et cetera, et cetera.
So I thought, well, okay, I am actually guilty of that.
But I think, well, when I think back, as my kids
got older, I would expect them to do it, and for the most
part, they did. But then there were times when either I got super
frustrated and just went and did a circus clean or and this is what I'll
still do now if they are tired or exhausted, or they've just you know,
written to nine hour exams. I'm thinking to my son, I'll,
you know, not like I would go in and tidy up just to help
them, but I would ask them if that was okay. So, yeah,
I have clean my kid's roads. I'm guilty of that. I think
that the question is like, should you feel guilty about that? Like,
I don't know, I mean, that sounds totally reasonable to me. What
you're describing. You know, You're not You're not swooping in and completely redecorating.
You're just like I know, I mean, this happens with my son's
laundry a lot, like he is supposed to do his own laundry, and
he does, but a lot of times he's like, oh, my gosh,
i have no clean clothes, and you know, I'm about to go
into tech Week for a show or whatever it is. You know, where
can you please help me? And he'll ask, and then I'll do it.
But then it'll sit by the dryer, you know, because where I
where I won't do it is bring bring the clean stuff back to his room.
And that's where we have to standoff. Where sits the room sit sense,
its sense, it's but you know, it doesn't it doesn't seem unreasonable
to me to I mean, you've lived in this house too, you know,
like yeah, you I don't know. I mean, definitely my kid's
rooms could use more cleaning than they get. Um, But I also don't
think it's a big deal to go in from time to time and like pick
up a few towels or plates or whatever. It is. So right,
Well, in my daughter's room is at the top of the stairs, like
you literally you walk up the stairs and her room is right there. So
that one probably gets more scrutiny than anything. And right because it's like,
oh gosh, I'm looking at that and I can close the door, but
I know what's going on the door piling up. So yeah, but I
mean I try to. I don't know. I'm a mixed bag with it.
I think I try to be respectful. They might say otherwise, But
I've never gone in and like redecorated or anything. That wouldn't because that was
part of that TikTok too. Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah, no,
no, I wouldn't go and do a whole overhaul, all right.
How many times did she asked the girl to clean her room before she went
in and did it. That's an important piece of information, right, because
at a certain point, if you don't do it, then I think the
parent is you know, well, I gave you a chance and you didn't
do it right, right, But I don't know did you catch that?
Anybody catch that? I don't think that was mentioned. Okay, But if
it's just I gotta wait for her to go to school so I can go
in and cleaning her, then you have a problem, mom, right right,
just not an issue really in my house, because it assumes that the
house in general has a certain degree of cleanliness and neatness. That and that
the kids are the greatest source of mess in the home, and not Oh
I don't know, say the mom. So I have like no leg to
stand on in this. My room is not clean, nor is it neat.
Probably the neatest bedroom in the house is my dog. It's a little
cluttered, but the clutter is carefully I think, arranged to her liking so
and periodically she just fills a trash bag with stuff and throws it out.
She's learned now not to let me see it when she does this, because
oh my gosh, she'll just like quietly clear decks, ben she'll vacuum her
room. Sometimes, she keeps it neat, she makes her bed. She's
been doing her a laundry for a very long time, and she brings it
back up and she puts it away, and I have absolutely nothing to do
with it. And it's nice. My husband actually does the laundry for the
for everybody else. And yes, my son has his dad does his laundry
for him and puts it away and he has nothing to do with it.
And his room is awful but mostly just dusty. We have a duty problem.
His room is very dusty. And if I propose going in and doing
something about that, he's basically don't touch my items. So every now and
then it just gets too ridiculous and we have to take everything out and dust
it and put it back in. But um, it does not bother him,
and really it doesn't bother me because I don't want to go. I
don't want to touch anything there. If I touch anything, there a whole
cloud of dust. We just leave it. So, yeah, I would
not be that mom. I don't think, at least not now. Maybe
when the kids were younger, I took more responsibility for it. When they
were younger and I had they had less agency and I had more energy,
but that's a very long time ago. Now, Yeah, I hobbles.
I feel like, you know, people getting on their high horse and saying
like you should always make your child be responsible for their own room and their
own stuff, Like yeah, go ahead and say that, Like how many
times does that really really happen? Yeah? You know, right, yeah
that too. You know, if there's something that's really important, maybe you
need to get involved. If there's something that's not that just bugs you person,
and only then just leave it, right, you know, if it
doesn't bother right, But um, I don't know. We're kind of a
live and let live sort of household, at least for that. There are
other things maybe not, but I don't go in their rooms that much anymore.
So, I mean, I'm already kind of looking forward to when my
son goes to college getting in there and actually like vacuuming because there's just too
much stuff on the floor. It never gets it never gets vacuumed. And
I think that's fair once he's once he's moved to college, I think,
and he's kind of becoming like a clothes horse. I mean, he it's
all from it's quite stylish, and it's all from goodwill, you know,
I mean, it's it's all from thrift shops. It's not he's not out
there spending a lot of money on stuff, but you know, just not
at a certain point, there's no room for it, especially because if you
recall early days of the pandemic, he turned the closet that is attached to
his room into his like hideout office space. And so when we did that,
we put a hanging clothes bar in the corner of his room. So
it's because he didn't have like hardly any hanging clothes at that time, so
now he does so that's part of the issue too, Like stuff gets washed
and then it sits because there's no there's no good place to put it.
So right, well, I'm probably more like I what the way I was
raised is that your bed had to get made every day, things had to
be up off the floor, like your room had to be tidy twenty four
seven, and and it was you know, checked to make sure that that
occurred. So um, I think I still have a little bit of that
ingrained in me, but I've tried to be over the years not as focused
on But now I see, like you know, I guess has that impact
of my kids, I don't know. I'm my son, no, he
pretty much just things are everywhere, and then my daughter she'll go for you
know, a week or two and then she'll do a big cleanup and kind
of straighten things out and get organized. So well, and as we heard
what she had a new roommate coming, she cleaned. Yeah. Yeah,
she cleaned the entire apartment, like the fridge, the cupboards, everything.
So yeah, she went to town with that. So yeah, so she's
still I guess as necessary, which I guess is what you know, it's
a good compromise, right in my world. Yes, yeah, so well
I think that's a good place to leave it. Yeah yeah, and say
that's it for today's Round three. Tune in tomorrow when we'll obsess about learning
new things, and then on Friday to see what we've come up with for
our Roundabout round up picks this week. Find all our episodes at parenting roundabout
dot com and talk back in the comments there, on our Facebook page or
on Twitter, where you'll find us a Roundabout Chat