Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Overheard From the Backseat

Sunday evening my entire family was in the van, traveling to have dinner with the extended entire family. As we drove, I enjoyed listening to my kids banter back and forth and share stories about life.
And there was one story, in particular, which delighted me beyond all the others.
That is, one of my children (who shall remain nameless - to protect the innocent!) was complaining about roommate challenges.
Seems this child's roommate doesn't like to do dishes, or clean up messes, or much of anything else which resembles being responsible for one's living space. And this child of mine is getting tired of it. To the extent that this child recently said to Messy Roommate, "Before you go to bed tonight, will you please clean up x, y, and/or z?" And, apparently, Messy replied with some element of drama and said my child was taking Messy back to moments with Messy's parents.
In other words, my child sounds like Messy's mom.
Which on the one hand made me laugh out loud with a certain sense of satisfaction - knowing my child has an inkling of the agony I experienced over years of saying the same kind of thing.
And which - on the other hand - made me grin with pride at the notion that my child was paying enough attention all those years to not only care about cleanliness, but also to remember how to motivate a person to action.
I mean, I don't know if Messy actually fulfilled the clean-up request (Because, goodness knows, my child(ren) didn't always respond to my requests - even when I tried the non-demanding, nag-free, sound-as-relaxed-as-possible "before you go to bed" approach.) but it delights me to no end that my years of attempted training are producing some results. And, yeah, it's fun to see my child learning to navigate the pathways of adulting.

Karen

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