Parenting Humor
Your Teen's Bedroom

I would step in very carefully. My son's room generally looks like Huricane Mitch just passed through. The clothes on the floor would be okay. He is not a clothes horse and would not mind if I stepped on them, clean or dirty. Its the "other stuff." CD's for his Playstation. Or maybe the headphones or his "pet frog." Also, he has literally thousands of sports cards and maybe a couple of hundred Pokemon cards as well. Heaven forbid that any of them should get bent or ruined because I stepped on one. Why he does not keep them in the binders and plastic jackets marketed for that purpose, I will never know.

As part of a carreer exploration exercise, my son completed a questionaire about his attributes and personality characteristics. I ran across it quite by chance. One of the questions had to do with neatness traits. The choices were three. One of the choices was "absolute slob." I'll give him credit for honesty. That's the one he circled.

I also would fear for my feet. In his room are at least two footballs, a baseball bat, a hockey stick and his current passion, golf clubs and other assorted paraphenalia of the game. In other words, a virtual field of land mines upon which to trip and sprain or break an ankle. Why he cannot keep his golf clubs and balls in the golf bag designed for that purpose, I will never know. I have discussed this issue with the mothers of some of his friends. While my son is probably at the extreme end of the slob curve, he is far from alone.

Since school is out, I would not have to worry about messing up his various piles of papers. Before June 11, 1999, I would see a stack of school papers in April with dates for the previous October. I once gently suggested that perhaps soem of this ancient history could be tossed in the recycling bin. However, there was always a remote possiblity that in these stacks was a paper that he really needed. I had to wait for the end of the school year before he would conset to part with any of that stuff. Unfortunately, most of these paper piles were on the floor and it would have been real easy to slip on one and land on your keister as a result.

Part of the problem is that middle class kids realy have "too many toys."

In other words may the day never come that I would have to go into his room in the dark.