<p>“Welcome to CC, MV!”
Thanks, sk8rmom.</p>
<p>My son lost his debit card; he searched the house for several days; then we relented and replaced it. EIGHT weeks later, he found it under a huge pile of papers on his desk in his room. The only reason that was found is because he is trying to get organized to head off to college. Unbelievable - the room is a disaster.</p>
<p>THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! I haven’t even read the whole thread but I am so happy to have it reaffirmed again that my daughter’s pig stye is not atypical. She’s had two friends over this week and when I had to get something in her room I was appalled that she thought it was clean enough to have someone walk into it. It’s disgusting! She loves her room, she decorated it exactly as she wanted it and she spends a lot of time there but to me it’s just awful. The only thing she’s not allowed to do in there is eat because I’d be afraid of the creatures she would attract. Damp clothes all over, she never throws anything out, UGH! I do try to avoid it whenever possible. Okay, done ranting, but again, thanks!</p>
<p>My 13-year-old daughter keeps her room quite organized and clean. She’s the type of kid who will lay out her clothes the night before. She’ll also come downstairs and say, “I cleaned the bathroom sink, Mom - is that OK?” </p>
<p>Her 16- and 19-year-old brothers, on the other hand, keep their rooms looking like a bomb has gone off. You have to wade through clothes to get to the beds.</p>
<p>Messiness reins in the DDs’ rooms here as well. I shut the doors, since I can’t stand the sight. And yes, they leave the house looking gorgeous and are quite fastidious about their personal hygiene and fashion. </p>
<p>I do remember my younger brother’s room being the worst in our home growing up, and he is now a neatnik. So, you never know how it will play out. Thanks for the smiles this thread brought on.</p>
<p>S2 turns 16 in 2 weeks. He finally asked if we would remove the dinosaur wallpaper border that we installed when he was born. Apparently, it is too embarrassing to bring friends in - not the enormous mess on the floor and surfaces - just the dinosaurs! lol</p>
<p>S’s is my neat freak (meaning clothes put away and things off the floor) but I still have to get him to vacuum and dust. He doesn’t like change and I felt the need to call him in college for permission to move his bed.</p>
<p>D has the biggest room and also the messiest. She’s good at throwing stuff into her closet at the last minute when she has friends visiting.</p>
<p>She likes change. She painted her green walls pink and now wants to change to blue.</p>
<p>My mom was always making me clean the house when I was young, I blame that for my extreme messiness. My kids are all neater than I am. They are responsible for their rooms, and clean them periodically with no prompting from me. They do leave clothes on the floor, etc, but then so do I. I only wash clothes that are in the hamper. I smiled last time I picked up 21 year old D at her apt, and she had to make her bed before she left. I don’t think I’ve made a bed in over 25 years.</p>
<p>warning to those mom’s who are happy with the cleaning habits of 12-14 year old girls…perfectly nice kids who lay out their clothes the night before…HA! let me say that again HA!..I thought my neatnik tween was a treasure but now she is 16 and each month the messiness gets worse. Is it hormones? I do nag and insist on a major p ickup before the cleaning lady comes and they are not supposed to eat in their rooms but today there were crumbs in the bed. YUCK! My biggest beef are the damp towels and I do get cross and refuse any food/water/rides until all towels are in the hamper or hung up. S was always messy and he lost things, damaged things by being careless…I don’t see much improvement in college but he told me that his neater roomate would occassionally go on a cleaning binge and he would assist out of guilt. This year he has to clean a shared bathroom. I am not hopeful but he does know how to do it. He has to clean up his art space in the basement before he goes back to college…I told him I am not driving him there until this is cleaned up. Those types of ultimatums work but you have to save them for the really important things…how could I decide which art needs to be dumped and what should be saved? That is definitely his responsibility.</p>
<p>“…and i managed a 3.694 first semester and 3.8 second semester!”</p>
<p>That was awesome to read imasophomore! And I concur with you mvivaldi… my biggest fear is that my DD will be able to be organized with her school work and of course life! Lots of growing up to be had by her!!</p>
<p>But all these post warm my heart as it makes me feel like my kid is NOT abnormal!!!</p>
<p>D’s room looks like she successfully whacked open a giant pinata from J. Crew.</p>
<p>The only time she cleans is when she’s procrastinating (finals; big paper due).</p>
<p>That is a truly hilarious description, Classof2015!</p>
<p>We are slogging through cleaning up and organizing together this week, because a whole summer of nagging has not worked.</p>
<p>I have offered to paint (and remove embarrassing wallpaper borders) for the past five summers, but they had to clean their rooms so I could get to the walls. Neither kid has taken me up on it.</p>
<p>Will be doing S1’s room this fall, I hope, but mainly because I have taken it over for my fabric art.</p>
<p>To make some of you feel better, my room at home is pretty much always a mess. I put clothes away and what not eventually, whenever I feel like it.</p>
<p>My rommate and I let our dorm room get pretty dirty during the year too. In fact we only really cleaned it the night before my mom would come to pick me up, just so it would look nicer when she arrived. </p>
<p>The bathroom pretty much went to hell, and I only cleaned the shower (private bathroom shared with 3 other guys) once. I ended up just finding a utility closet and using all the chemicals I could find on the tiles to kill mold. </p>
<p>But, that doesn’t matter. I had a normal social life, I did well in school, did my laundry, etc. The state of your child’s room really means nothing</p>
<p>… unless you find drugs and hustler magazines or something</p>
<p>Classof2015, I also loved the J. Crew pinata description.</p>
<p>Re Tessamess’s:
“That was awesome to read imasophomore! And I concur with you mvivaldi… my biggest fear is that my DD will be able to be organized with her school work and of course life! Lots of growing up to be had by her!!”:
I hope that my daughter will be able to be at least organized with her school work, both on the physical level (not misplacing important notes, papers, etc) and on the mental level (keeping an orderly mind). When she was younger, she would not be able to find school work, and would feel so frustrated that she would actually cry, and would need to start again (she is a child of divorce, so often the schoolwork was left at her fathers - we thought). But, in the last few years, although she seems to have gotten worse re the mess in her room - and although there is paper scatter amidst the “pinata” residue - she does not seem to misplace her schoolwork. So, there is hope.
I think - as you stated, Tessamess - that there’s “lots of growing up” to be done by my daughter also. And, where better than in the environment of college, where she’s mentally and emotionally moving away from her childhood home base while still having some more structure than she’ll be having when she’s totally on her own in the “real world”. And, while in college, if she’s getting her work done and getting it done well - which I see as her learning to be expansive and creative yet concise in her mental work - I will be very happy for her. A messy yet happy and productive “genius(I’m exaggerating here)”?: I’ll be very happy.</p>
<p>Re PurpleDuckMan’s entry:
"…But, that doesn’t matter. I had a normal social life, I did well in school, did my laundry, etc. The state of your child’s room really means nothing</p>
<p>… unless you find drugs and hustler magazines or something"
Thanks for your thoughts - I get the sense that you’re either farther along in your college life or recently graduated - or you just can remember what it was like for you. I can’t remember what the state of my college room was. I’ve alternated, in my life since then, between neat and messy. But, my studio has usually been organized; it seems a necessary pre-requisite to plunging into a creative, suspension-of-disbelief attitude for making art.
Happily, I found no drugs, hustler magazine, alcohol, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone.</p>
<p>I’m just going into my second year of college, haha. I just felt like looking over the Parent Foums last night when I couldn’t fall asleep</p>
<p>^what are you saying? We’re…boring? “Parents Forum – better than Ambien?”</p>
<p>Kidding. Good luck – sophomore year is the best.</p>
<p>Oh – one other thing – don’t get old. If someone comes up to after class, or in your dorm, and says, “you wanna get old?” Just say no – and walk away. Promise?</p>
<p>^Think he was saying you’re exciting since it kept him up!</p>
<p>That sounds like good advice.</p>
<p>It was Washington, but I wish we could have moved it.</p>
<p>We Just got back a few hours ago from sending daughter to college across country. The rule as we packed her 5 suitcases was she could not go out that night unless her room was very orderly in spite of all the chaos of packing</p>