Monday, February 08, 2010
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Do you ever get overwhelmed with housework? If this is you....I hope the "Mr Men" story will make you smile and that you'll be able to use one or two of the "Coach Yourself" questions to help you feel less weighed down by the domestic chores!
A friend has a magnet on her fridge and it says something along the lines of “Tidy houses are for dull women”. I disagree – tidy houses are for perfectionist women who think they need to be in control – women like me. I’m not dull, but I do have a certain manic quality when it comes to wanting tidy surroundings. I find an absolute sense of calm when my surroundings are neat, tidy, serene, pleasing to the eye. As I sit here, the house isn’t as tidy as I’d like it to be, and I tend to pick things up, tidy as I pass. However, this is very frustrating as it never ends! And living as the only woman in an all male household, I’m constantly flabbergasted at a certain selective vision that I’ve noticed over the years.
Periodically, when I feel fed up with picking up after "you know who" (he who shall not be named but to whom I am married), I deliberately leave a discarded item where it was dropped, just to see if “anyone else” picks it up. There has been a clothes hanger in the middle of the stairs for 2 days now. I think the record is one week, before I’ve given up and picked the offending item up myself.
But I’m not alone! When my clients profess a sense of frustration with their spouses, they struggle to understand how, for the most part, their man doesn’t share their need for an ordered house. I know that we’re not all like this – sweeping gender generalisations always have exceptions – but I do know that the majority of the women I’ve come across seem to get more bothered about being neat than the men they know. I do have one male friend who disproves the rule. He’s the sort of guy who will clear away the glass you’re still drinking from in his quest for eternal neatness. He’s a domestic god in my opinion, but his wife often wishes he’d be more like her, chill and live with a bit of mess. The grass is always greener, isn’t it?!!
Anyway, onto the story about Little Miss Neat and the autumn leaves. I was taking a walk the other day near my home. I’d walked up a path and up towards the forest nearby. As I walked, I marvelled at how the autumnal leaves were floating off the trees. Watching those falling leaves mesmerised me – it feels like nature is busy getting itself ready to hibernate for winter, as the falling of the leaves never stops. This reminded me about a Mr Men Story that I’d read to Max and Freddie less than a week earlier.
Those of you who have been reading over a year may remember that this is the second time I’ve referred to Mr Man stories in Inspire. Oh, the wisdom of the Mr Men stories! Who needs lengthy self-development books when you can just read a Mr Man story to your kids and have a laugh at the same time?! This particular story is called “Little Miss Neat and the Last Leaf”.
Little Miss Neat likes things to be “as neat as two pins” and that’s why she lives in a cottage called Two Pin Cottage. She has a very neat garden, but one autumn day she looks out of her window and sees a leaf falling from a tree. “Oh, goodness gracious!” she cries, “What a mess!” So Little Miss Neat picks up the leaf and puts it in the bin. But you can guess what’s coming next can’t you? Another leaf falls, and then another ... “And so it went on all day long” Little Miss Neat, true to her namesake, spent the whole day “rushing backwards and forwards”. By the end of the day “poor Little Miss Neat was exhausted”. She spends the next morning running around trying to keep up with the falling leaves, until Mr Happy finds her and suggests that she does what he does – waits until all the leaves have fallen and then picks them up. “You ought to try it. It’s much easier” So Little Miss Neat tries this, but she finds that “it was easier said than done”. She frets and worries and hates watching all those messy leaves.
Finally, all but one of the leaves falls. Mr Happy plucks it off the tree and helps Little Miss Neat to tidy the leaves. Aaah, he’s such a nice man, Mr Happy! Now it’s no coincidence I don’t think that Little Miss Neat is a Little MISS, and that Mr Happy – he who ignores the leaves until they’ve all fallen is a Mr. MAN. But joking apart, the question to ponder in this story for all of you like me, who frustrate and exhaust yourself with housework is this...
Like Little Miss Neat, are we fighting a losing battle by trying to keep up with the “falling leaves” around the home? Are we sailing against the wind by trying so hard to keep it all “neat”? Whilst I will clear the kitchen whilst I’m preparing the meal, my very own Mr. Happy waits for all the mess to accumulate and clears it all up in one go, which is fine as long as I – Little Miss Neat – don’t venture into the kitchen! But it occurs to me that these Mr Happy Chappies might be able to teach us a thing or two – about letting go of control and just lightening up on the need for perfection for goodness sake!
Coach Yourself out of Little Miss Neatness
Now, I preface this by saying that I clearly haven’t got the million dollar answer to the question about keeping your surroundings tidy without exhausting yourself like Little Miss Neat and feeling like no matter what you do, it never ends. But I do find that regaining my sense of perspective helps. Whilst I know how I often feel near insanity at the never-ending laundry, the toys that magically appear in the strangest places and the conveyor belt nature of clearing the kitchen, it usually helps to reflect that so many people don’t have my “problems”. When I catch myself, I will say a quiet prayer of thanks for having so much stuff to wash and clear away, for having food to prepare and a kitchen to clean, for having a dishwasher to constantly empty.
For the times when you’re not in the thick of it, try a few of my “Coach Yourself” questions and see what you come up with... Read More...
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Sarah Layton commented on 03-Mar-2010 03:48 PM
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