I’m pretty tired from the weekend, and I didn’t sleep well, come to think of it. (To really “come to think of it” I haven’t slept well in three years.) It was too cold to do things outside this weekend, so we were all stuck in the apartment together. We decided to deep clean the apartment, and finish the ongoing project of organizing the kid’s room. We hung more book shelves in her room, since I can’t stop buying her books, and got lots of bins for the kid to put her toys in. This is all in an effort to make her small space more efficient, and to also make it easier for her to clean up her room. As that seems to be a constant battle; cleaning the room!
On weekends like this, I start thinking about nature/nurture when it comes to the kid. How will this cleaning, and organizing affect her? Will having a room with white bins of different sizes, labeled, cause her to be an organized person? Will she rebel against organization in adolescence? Will this cause her to flourish in analytical endeavors, or crush her creativity?
My parents were very organized people; Scheduled and regimented. To this day, at 77, my father keeps a schedule for each day, of things to accomplish. I never felt that my folks pushed “order” on me, but I can clearly say that I rebelled against anything that had any order to it in my teens and twenties. I hated patterns, and well, anything scheduled and consistent. Only when I started my professional career in my 30’s, that this inclination to be orderly and organized became an advantage. Now in my 40’s, I can’t stop organizing and scheduling.
So, as I look at my kid, I wonder how this will play out, or if it ever plays out; does putting things in a box matter?
