The skills we just clean forgot to teach our kids
I was cleaning my toilet when the epiphany came.
I’d already mopped the kitchen and bathrooms when I realized I wouldn’t have enough time to scrub my daughters’ toilet and still make the 8 a.m. bus that would get me to my paying job.
Then it hit me. I was rushing through my chores to clean up after girls who are old enough to hold down jobs and drive, but haven’t bothered to learn how to properly handle a toilet brush and a bottle of bleach.
Because I haven’t bothered to teach.
Maybe those Southern Baptists are onto something. In a front page article last week, my colleague Stephanie Simon wrote about a Texas Bible college that gives female students degree credit for courses in homemaking.
I’m sure it drew a chuckle out of some readers -- the notion that young women today would consider learning to launder stubborn stains an intellectual pursuit.
But I marveled that even Bible Belt moms are sending their daughters off to college without teaching them how to sew on a button, set a proper table or render a bathroom fresh and clean.
I’d like to think I’ve taught my three daughters a lot: To appreciate a good book and a fragrant rose. To befriend misfits and take in stray dogs. That homework takes priority over socializing. That it’s their right to be opinionated; a strong voice is not a liability.
But it’s what I haven’t taught them that now bothers me. And many of my friends -- also mothers of teenage girls -- lament the same thing.
We’ve been raising our daughters to conquer the world, not keep it clean and orderly.
They play soccer, sing in the choir, volunteer in political campaigns, earn high marks in chemistry and black belts in tae kwon do.
But their rooms look like hazardous waste dumps, and they’re stumped by the dials on the washing machine. And when the choice is between cleaning the kitchen after dinner or studying for an algebra exam, housework always get a pass.
I polled some local parent coaches -- mothers who earn their living helping parents raise their kids -- and learned that a “values shift” is, in part, to blame.
Middle-class parenting is more about resume-building today than teaching responsibility, they say.
Parents let kids off the hook at home because they want them to do well in school, be popular with their friends and collect enough extracurricular credits to get into good colleges.
Deborah Stambler sees the struggle among the Westside parents she counsels. “They’re asking, ‘I’m trying to teach my kid to be self-reliant; why does he or she seem so lazy?’ ”
The teens seem lazy, she said, because they don’t see “that taking care of the house is a collective responsibility.”
Long Beach coach Carolyn Gatzke said working parents are often reluctant to squander precious time with their children fighting about an unmade bed.
“When you have the luxury of being able to pay someone to help at home, your kids don’t have to vacuum their room or clean the toilet. . . . As you’re picking battles, is doing the chores the hill you’re willing to die on?”
It’s hard to admit I’m raising girls who seem content to sit and watch TV while I lug groceries in from the car, or to plop down at the dinner table and wait to be served when I call them to the kitchen to eat.
Though I’ve never met with a parenting coach, the ones I talked to seem to have a bead on moms like me: We’re not there enough, so we try to compensate.
We overdo the nurturing until it’s crippling.
But it’s not too late to fix it, even though my children have one foot out the door.
Here is what the experts told me:
1) Admit that it’s my fault that my kids are lazy slobs.
2) Accept that undoing the damage may require negotiation, as in “Honey, don’t you know how important clean kitchen counters are to me?”
3) Patiently explain each step of each chore, much like the algebraic expressions they studied years ago.
4) Resist the temptation to threaten and criticize; no taking the car keys away because the floors don’t shine.
5) Expect that, like acquiring a taste for Brussels sprouts, it may take many tries -- and gentle reminders -- for them to learn to clean a toilet right.
6) Recognize that they may not keep their rooms clean until they leave home, and they have new critics: roommates, boyfriends, mothers-in-law.
And my hands -- and my bathrooms -- will be clean.
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OK, come clean. Do your kids really help you around the house? Does it require nurturing or nagging?
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