And so does the drama. Which, according to my family, drama is something my dear daughter comes by honestly. I try to huff and be offended but it's true. I was a teenage drama queen. I created my fair share of Angry scenes and Important Declarations about just how dorky and out of touch my family was and how they could not possibly know anything about how I was feeling...In. This. Very. Moment.
Now that I am a mother of a 12 year old, and a little more experienced with life, I know that my parents were not quite the dorks I thought they were, nor were they that unfamiliar with how things in my life were changing. I standing in that place myself. At this present moment, my kids think I'm pretty OK. But my daughter is listening to what I say and is telling me that I embarrass her. And I learned this weekend, I can also make her very hurt and angry.
The incident that sparked this particular revelation revolved around getting our bedroom clean. It was to the point where I could not tolerate the clutter and the creeping mess any longer. This was going to be taken care of this weekend. I told her of my plan on Friday night. I reminded her on Saturday morning and even gave her fair warning about when I was going to be ready to get started. I asked her to come up with me and I gave her a job to start with while I put some laundry away because I needed the laundry baskets...
She did that job and did it well. And then disappeared. I saw her and her brother playing in the woods. I worked on my area of the room. I put away all my clean clothes, cleaned out the junk that seems to infiltrate the crevices and open spaces under my bed, night stand and the edge of my dresser. I even pulled off my sheets and flipped my mattress.
After lunch, I told her she needed to come back up and help. She wandered up and again stayed for only a few minutes. I decided I would provide us some entertainment so I even found a way to turn the upstairs TV so that it would face our room. I went down to find her, and she had fallen asleep. Apparently, she had been a participant in the overnight video game party with her brothers after all. So, I let her sleep and determined that if she was not going to participate in this clean and purge event, that was to her loss. She had had an opportunity several weeks prior to clean up her mess, organize, set some precious things aside and all she did was shove things around. This was getting done today.
I worked hard. I pulled everything out from under her lofted bed and sorted and organized. I put some of the toys and items she never plays with anymore, but I dare not throw, and put them in the storage container. Anything that looked broken or like crumpled up trash, I tossed. I wound up with one huge lawn bag full of garbage and several smaller bags full. When it was all done, I was very pleased with how it looked. She can sit under her bed and pull books out of the little cubbies she has under there. You can see her pink fuzzy rug again.
I woke her up and she was not happy about that because she was still tired. But I did not want her sleeping the entire day away or she would have trouble sleeping at night. I told her to go and check out our room.
I proceeded to get dinner ready and get ready for a class I attend on Saturday nights. She was pouting about something one of her brothers did and I told her to leave the table until she could join us with a more appropriate attitude. She never came back down.
When I went upstairs to finish getting ready, she was in our room and I asked her what she thought. She yelled at me, "You threw away things I was saving. And I don't know what to do with this stuff YOU put on my bed."
Whoa, girl. Them's fightin' words.
For your information, daughter, I spent my entire day cleaning this room. I did not throw everything away. Some things are put up. I asked and asked you to come up and work with me but you kept disappearing and I was not going to wait for you. The fact of the matter is that I have been asking your for a long time to get this clutter under control and you have not. You have had fair warning that this would happen. And honestly, if I see your part of our room get like this again, I will do the same thing again. So, you need to learn to take better care of your stuff and put it away so that it is clear it is something sentimental but shoving papers under your bed and my bed is not showing me these are things you care about.
At this point, she quit looking at me and sat, stewing under her bed, ignoring me. Then she handed me a note, written in purple crayon:
"Dear Mom
How would you like it if someone came in and threw out your dreams and Ideas for when you want a good job and that person had nothing. no job No house and no life. Because every thing that I had built from scratch and that you threw away was my chance of life and you threw my life away -Princess"
Honestly, when she handed me the note, I had to fight off a giggle. She was very sincere and earnest. I felt awful in giggling. She was just so cute. And so dramatic.
I was bothered by her feeling so hurt. But at the same time, I also figured I was teaching her a tough lesson. I remember my own mom teaching me hard lessons too...especially about possessions and room cleaning. I don't think my mom ever went through and tossed things but I do remember a few Saturdays when she went through the room I shared with my sisters and pulled out everything we had been stuffing into crevices, corners and closets and threw it into the center of the room. Our job was to put everything away and we could not come out until we finished.
I do think that my parents would get rid of things we left out and did not put away. As I thought about it, I do not think I was unreasonable or out of line. I did need to deal with the hurt she was feeling about it. So maybe my method was harsher than I intended. She is a sensitive girl. My Mom told me today, when I described it to her, that it is not that what I did was wrong or out of line but perhaps that these were things she just did not want to let go of and was not mentally prepared to do so yet.
I also talked with my friend Elizabeth ( Thanks :-)!) and she suggested that I start a shared journal with Princess. Then she and I can continue to communicate privately and keep that door open. Plus she will have the journal for as long as she wants it. I think this is an excellent idea. I talked to Princess about it and she really liked the idea. So, I found a notebook that I had not started using. I decorated the cover and made it girly and we designated a special drawer for it.
I'm keeping the purple note too.
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