In my four years of college, I went through nine roommates. Some of this was by design—spending a year abroad automatically ups the roommate body count a bit—but the majority of the changes were because of my loyalty to a lovely old historic dorm almost everyone else was eager to leave. I learned a lot about sharing spaces with different kinds of people this way, and two of my nine roommates stand out in regards to cleaning.
My first roommate was from my high school and I was eager to get along with her. When she started cleaning my desk while I was working at it, I was a little too shocked and eager to keep her around to tell her I did not appreciate such meddling. One evening, I was already signed into an event when I received a message from her telling me she was rearranging our furniture. I signed out and met back up with her to make sure that I could still find my things afterward, and never told her how rude it is to do something that major without warning. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the roommate I received when I got back from Spain was very messy. This part didn’t bother me so much as long as she left a walkway for me to get to my side of the room, but she left raw, leaking meat in my shiny new refrigerator without asking. I wiped my fridge down and sent it home without ever discussing the matter with her. I was constantly frustrated by the food trash she would leave lying around, by the lurid details of her dating life she would relate over the phone, and by her leaving the notification sounds for her social media on all night so that it would beep at random intervals. I was miserable, but I never said anything because we had the biggest, nicest room in the entire dorm with the best views of campus. If I applied for a new roommate, I would lose my prize real estate. In both cases, there may have been dysfunction coming from my roommates, but there was also dysfunction coming from me. People who share a space need to discuss how to treat the space. When issues arise, they need to discuss these things calmly, like adults, instead of either simmering in silent resentment or passive-aggressively trying to force their standards onto others. Any pair or group of people who share a space need to communicate their likes and dislikes, lay down at least a few basic rules, and clarify responsibilities. Everyone arrives in a new living space with certain expectations about how that space should look, how it should be cared for, and who should do the caring. If each person blindly acts on this baggage without ever talking about it, resentments can bubble, fights sometimes happen, semi-parasitic situations occasionally emerge, and general chaos ensues. For example, even if one spouse is working and the other isn’t, it is not reasonable to assume that the non-working spouse will do absolutely everything around the house. In the mid-century arrangement that gave us the stereotypical housewife, men were still expected to mow the lawn and wash the car every once in a while. At the beginning of our marriage when I was in graduate school but my husband was still job-seeking, I still took care of our laundry because my clothing requires more precise care than most of his things. There is no one, perfect, divinely decreed way to divide up labor in a household. Because everyone shares the house, it is important to have a household meeting every once in a while, formal or informal, to discuss what level of cleanliness is expected and who will take care of doing it. This needs to be re-evaluated from time to time because things change. People learn more skills to help out (especially in the case of children), preferences or abilities to do different tasks change over time, and time commitments outside the home shift around a good deal. These outside time commitments need to be a part of the conversation so that the household can come to a fair division of labor. In the case of children, for a variety of reasons it is important to include them in these discussions as early as they are able to understand them. First of all, if they are not yet actively involved in the upkeep of the house, they need to understand the work that goes into it so that they do not take it for granted. Secondly, it is unfair to assign a child a chore without explaining how to do it properly first or without throwing at least a little praise their way from time to time to keep them motivated. If all your child hears about their efforts to contribute to the household cleaning effort is criticism, they will lose the motivation to keep trying. Also, you want to make sure you teach your child enough survival skills to make it on their own once they leave home, and deliberate discussions about these matters can remind you where they are developmentally for acquiring these skills. Finally, this is a chance for your child to talk about all of those external time commitments and pressures they’re dealing with that not only factor into the cleaning discussion, but also into your staying aware of their emotional health as their parent. If you habitually listen carefully to your child as they discuss their schedule and academic commitments, you can go a long way towards earning their trust and keeping the lines of communication open during the most delicate stages of the parent-child relationship. For all parties, private space and personal boundaries need to be respected. Common areas rightly need to be subjects of discussion with rules of engagement, but those things that only pertain to one person need to belong to that person. I do not meddle with my husband’s desk, for example—I consider it his space and do not touch it without his permission. Growing up, I always appreciated that although my parents would roll their eyes and make jokes about the messes in my room, they didn’t get in there and move stuff around. It would reach a certain level of messiness and then I’d clean it, starting the cycle over again. If they had interfered, it would have either bred resentment or taught me that I don’t need to take ownership of my own space. Cleaning together as a household can either be coercive drudgery or a positive, bonding experience depending on how it’s approached. Respecting free will, talking about expectations, and discussing task assignments are all key to making it more positive. The relational climate in your house is every bit as important as the level of cleanliness, if not more so. If you can keep the relational climate positive, you might find it easier to do even your least favorite household tasks.
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AuthorJillian Lutes is the youth pastor at West Covina Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church. Archives
May 2020
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