Let me relay an incident which occurred over supper Sunday night. After doing a thorough cleaning/purging of my sons’ bedroom and to start off the new year, I informed my two boys (aged 6 ½ and 10 ½ ) that I would like them to make their beds when they get up in the morning before school each day. They were agreeing to comply when out of nowhere a cry of protestation emerged from none other than my husband. “Why should the boys have to make their beds?â€, he said. “The beds just get messy when they go to sleep at night, anyways. Why make them do unnecessary work?â€Â I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Here was my husband, the person who is ‘supposed’ to support me in matters of training up our children, leading a revolt of the masses in our very own home! The ‘mom-archy’ has been overthrown! Anarchy reigns!Â
My husband was quite adamant in his argument for perpetual bed-mangling. He seems quite convinced that there is no good reason for anyone to make their bed and he felt compelled to lobby for the rights of the underprivileged, namely our two sons. Let me mention that at no time is my husband required to make the bed (I do that) and what I was asking of the boys didn’t affect him at all. Still, he could not just sit by and let my ‘tyrannical demands’ infringe upon our two sons’ freedoms.
He’s leading a revolt, I tell you! It’s a slippery slope… Today its bed-making, tomorrow it’ll be taking baths (they just get dirty again anyway, why do unnecessary work???). He went so far as to get the boys to vote on what they would rather do. ‘To make the bed or not to make the bed, that is the question.’ As if!!! Of course the boys voted against bed-making. (oh yeah, my husband did preclude the question saying that its not a democracy, but if it were, what would you vote…)
Popular opinion has swayed and mom is losing the battle. So there will be no bed-making in our household (except for my bed). Even though it looks better when the bed is made, it’s a good habit to keep a neat room (including the bed), and the majority of the western world performs the ritual of bed-making. And above all, it makes mom happy.
Bed-makers of the world, we must stand united. The winds of revolution are in the air. Don’t let what happened to me happen to you.
🙂
I love having my bed made. Partly because I use it as a table during the day… Change table… Laundry table… And sometimes, if I’m very lucky, I have a snack in it in the afternoon with a book while the boys nap. If I didn’t make my bed then all kinds of things would end up between my sheets… Tubes of vaseline… Loose socks… Crumbs. It just makes sense. Plus it looks so much prettier. I don’t suppose the pretty argument would hold any weight with the men in your house though.
Maybe you should stop washing the dishes, they are just going to get dirty anyway. I happen to think bedmaking is a good habit. It brings peace and comfort to your room and home. I think you should enforce the original thought. It is a baby step. It is how we learn to put good things into our lives by starting small so that we can do grander things.
I’m for making the bed. Much more peace. Though I’m not very successful at getting them all to make their beds every day…but I won’t do it for them.
Im definitly with sherry and lani.
It’s about responsibility. Training up our children is our job. Doing things that we don’t really like doing is good training. There’s lots of things I don’t like doing….but they need to get done.
I’m all for order. For someone who lived in chaos for many years, there is much blessing in order.