A Mother's Work Is Never Done

My house has been in a state of perpetual grime ever since my mom left to visit my brother's family in Temecula and help with their move to a new home. Before then, it already looked like a tsunami had passed through, wrecked destruction and decided to come back once more for good measure! You know how when things get to a state of disarray so disastrous you don't know where to begin organizing and basically give up before you even start... well, that's where I was psychologically, looking at the huge mess I called home.

It got so bad that every time I had an appointment with the cleaning lady, my mom had to show up first to prep our home’s surfaces. Otherwise, the crew would spend too much time picking up and clearing out to effectively dust and clean. Sometimes I wonder if my cleaning lady ever thought our nice home was wasted on undeserving, unmotivated occupants.

I have no more excuses since my children are well past the age where you can blame them for a messy home. All of the things considered "essential" to their childhood were either given away, buried in the garage, or lost after our several moves in recent years. Gone are the high chairs, sling seats, play swings, strollers, push toys, tricycles... that took up the entire lower floor of our modest 1,800 sq ft starter house. Back then, guests entering our home were flabbergasted and confused to see a gigantic resin play set complete with two swings and a tall slide taking up our entire living room with the cathedral ceiling and blocking out all light. Looking back, I couldn't believe how indulgent we were as parents... by that I meant we put the kids' need to play ahead of our need for an orderly environment. Even now I still give myself permission for shoddy housekeeping by repeating my mantra that having a messy home isn't the end of the world.

Nevertheless, it's become harder for me to justify our disorderly existence now that my firstborn is college aged and her siblings are in their teens. Despite my best effort at paring down and reducing clutter in our lives literally and figuratively, our family continued to accumulate "stuff" as the kids grew up and began acquiring their own indispensables. For years my kids attended Vietnamese school on the weekend, so they each owned two backpacks – the first to store their regular schoolwork and the second for their Vietnamese school binders. I first tried having them switch out their belongings from the same backpacks every Saturday morning and again on Sunday night, but it became a terrific hassle with the kids repeatedly missing their supplies and homework, so I finally resigned myself to seeing eight backpacks pile up in our hallway.  Since Lauren took up water polo and Kiet wrestling, each got his/her own duffle bag for their sports gear, adding to the family's ever-rising bag count. Not to mention Lauren & Audrey's shoe bags for ballroom dancing; Lauren & Andrea's cases for their working guitars, in addition to derelict musical instruments they couldn't bear to part with... and let's not forget Audrey and her sundry photography equipment!  Starting in her second year of Fashion Design school, Audrey conveniently set up her ironing station smack in the middle of our living room, right next to our formal dining table that only sees guests once or twice a year, the rest of the time serving as Audrey's drafting station. Her sewing machine would migrate from one room in the house to the next as she sees fit, sometimes appearing on my master bedroom vanity and other times on the kitchen table or even Audrey's bed. Going barefoot in our home can be a real hazard as you're likely to step on needles and pins left behind from Audrey's multiple sewing projects.

Audrey's bedroom is a lost cause and for my own sanity, I've given up obsessing about it being a disaster zone. There is no walking path whatsoever as the floor is completely covered with shopping bags filled to the brim with fabric scraps, supplies and tools. Her bathroom countertop is similarly overrun with her toiletry, makeup and costume jewelry. Most of the times Audrey has her door closed to guard against spying and complaints, but once in a while she would scream for me to enter and help if while unearthing her stuff, she encountered silverfish, a bug known to thrive under clutter.

If the world's population were divided into two categories of people – those who throw away things and those who hoard, I would belong to the "disposable" group and my children the "recycle". As far as I'm concerned, we're all entitled to our possessions, but do we really need to keep the packaging that came with the stuff itself, as well as things that haven't been put in service for, say... a decade? It drives me nuts that my children would defy me by hoarding empty shoe boxes for a rainy day, half-torn gift bags from Christmas Past, the bubble mailers in which their internet orders came, the security blankets they carried around from their toddler days, etc. They've been known to take back articles delegated to the family's donation bin and accuse me of being heartless. Lauren is forever resentful of "the needy" because she thinks they have most of her clothes... of course that can't be true because her closet and drawers are still overflowing! She has never forgiven me for giving away her treasured Rocking Duck that she purchased with her own money. Even when she was little, my explanation that it went to duck heaven didn't fly!

Among my children, only Kiet has shown a natural propensity for simple living and an accompanying penchant for neatness. Unfortunately, although his sisters labeled him a "freak" for hating dust, his dislike of dust only propels him to close the windows in his room after I open the shutters to let in fresh air and does not extend to actual cleaning up. Nevertheless, I feel gratified that he actually makes his own bed most mornings. His sisters never even cared if they slept on a bare mattress or on bedding that hasn't been changed for months.

Several people have asked me what I'd be doing for Mother's Day. My modest plan was to change the sheets on Andrea's bunk bed, a chore I've put off for many weeks in anticipation of my next appointment with the cleaning lady (I like to coordinate sheet-changing with tidying up as it makes me feel more organized and industrious than I actually am), but that couldn't be accomplished without my mom coming over to prep our house first. It just goes to show whichever generation you belong to, a mother's work is never done!

"Guilty as Charged!" my Mother's Day card from Andrea