My 5-Year-Old Will Never Pick Up After Herself, Unless I Stop Doing It

I was a supremely messy child. I shoved crap into the bottom of my closet instead of putting it away. I let broken pencils and old homework assignments pile up in my desk until it had to be dumped on the floor and sorted. Every once in a while, my mom would find an ice cream bowl and a spoon under my bed. Seriously. I was really messy. And my messiness caused more fights between my mother and me than I would care to count.

As I got older, I learned how to clean up after myself. I learned why it was important. But the entire time I lived with my parents, my messy room was my single point of childhood defiance. I just really hated being told what I had to do with all of my stuff. (Yes, I know my parents bought all of that stuff. Whatever. I was a kid.) To this day, I have an odd messy pile of nonsense and sweaters that don’t really need to go in the laundry because I only wore them for a few minutes next to my bed. It’s my little spot of rebellion.

Now, as just another piece of evidence that karma exists, I have my own messy daughter. I have a little girl who has to be ordered, cajoled, and bribed into cleaning up her room. No matter how many labels bins I stuff in her room, she doesn’t ever want to bother putting things away. No matter how much I nag, she shovels things into her closet or scoots them under the bed, just like I used to.

For the first few years of my daughter’s life, I replayed the same routine that my mother and I had. I tried over and over again to my daughter to clean up. I felt personally offended that she didn’t “appreciate” all of her toys, since she didn’t bother to take care of them. I spent hours sitting on the floor with her, trying to help her see why picking up her mess was so important.

And you know what? None of those systems worked. No amount of guilting or demanding or chastising made my daughter more inclined to pick up her toys without a parent demanding it. Just like those arguments never worked for my mother and me.

So I’m decided to change tactics. I’m going to attempt to break the cycle. And I’m going to stop ordering that my daughter clean up her room. It’s time to let messy kids be messy kids, and let them figure out their own ways to deal with it.

Do I want to raise a child who is a slob? Of course not. And will my daughter be allowed to leave a mess in the shared spaces of our house? Not at all. She will continue to do chores and put her dishes in the sink and keep the living room tidy. But really, these things have never been our problem. It’s all about her bedroom, and that’s the place that I’m going to step back from.

If my little girl wants to leave toys all over her floor, I’m going to let her. If she wants to leave her blocks out for weeks, I’m going to let her. I might institute a, “No snacks in your bedroom,” rule. I don’t want bugs or gross smelly things under her bed. (I’m sorry, Mom. Those ice cream bowls pushed things too far.) But I’m going to let her see what it’s like to be in charge of her own space.

I’m going to let my kid have a messy room. And I’m going to let her experience the annoyance and frustration that goes with it. I’m going to let her lose things, and I’m not going to help her search them out. I’m going to let her step on a toy and break it, and we’re not going to buy a replacement. And I’m going to explain that she can’t have friends over to spend the night when they can’t walk on her floor or sleep on her top bunk covered in Barbie shoes and kitchen food.

My hope is that like I did as a teenager, my daughter will figure out that the mess just isn’t practical. She’ll see that while we might not find cleaning fun, it’s still a necessity. Either that or she’ll own her mess proudly. She’ll love that her space is covered in clutter. If that’s her true nature, why would I want to find it for the next decade?

As a bit of a messy person, I understand that not everyone is meant to be neat and organized at all times. We’re not all made that way. And ordering that type of behavior onto my daughter just doesn’t seem productive. It wasn’t for me as a child. And it hasn’t worked out as a mother either. So I’m going to step back and let me little girl figure it out on her own, instead of setting us up for fight after fight on a topic that couldn’t be less important to me.

Do I want my daughter to be responsible for her things? Yes. And if she loses a couple of toys she cares about, I think she’ll learn that responsibility. I’ll continue to expect that she helps us keep our home neat and tidy. But I’m going to let her room be her space to control.

That might make me a horrible parent. I might be shirking my responsibility and stepping down from the important fight. But I feel like a little personal mess is just not the battle I want to choose. Parenting is an experiment. And my daughter’s bedroom is about to become our laboratory. Let’s hope it all works out for the best.

(Photo: holbox/Shutterstock)