I was sad that the boys were sent to bed early last night. My intention in tidying their room is never that they will be punished for it. My intention is to show love. Instead, I think they probably resent my act of service. They probably think they're in trouble because I had better things to do than spend time in their room, like you told them. This probably conjures an image of me huffing around their room, disgruntled by how disgusting and slobby they are. It's true that I am disgruntled at times when I find old food or paperwork that should have been signed and returned or wrecked library books, but that's not as common as you might expect.
They probably don't know that it brings me so much joy to do something for them, that I choose to clean their messes because I love them. I hope that they appreciate that I give my time to serve them, but I'm fairly certain that punishing them for my unsolicited service invites resentment instead of gratitude. What was a surprise given with love turns into a pretty awful event and that pains me.
When I was a young girl, I used to come home from school sometimes and find my mom had cleaned up my room. She knew how to make my bed and organize my clothes in a way that I could never duplicate. Usually I would find a note on my pillow expressing love. And yes, shame on me for having a room in need of cleaning, but I learned something priceless from finding a magically clean room. It's not something that always happened and I remember getting in trouble sometimes for my mess as well, but I remember much more vividly the way I felt and the way my room felt after my mom had spent time in there. I want to do that for our kids. It's not that I don't want them to be responsible. It's not that I don't expect them to learn to care for their things and contribute to our house management. I don't always clean their room, but when I do, let's leave it at that.
L
