Many of you have been keeping up with our cleanup from a nightmare renter who left my home looking like an EPA Superfund site.
We keep asking two questions as we toil away, cleaning feces from walls (how the heck do you poop on every bathroom wall?! And then how do you just leave it?!) and carpets, shoveling through years’ worth of dust and fending off swarms of fleas and other disgusting organisms: First, how does someone become so shamefully irresponsible? Second, and more importantly, those poor children who are growing up in this filth!
Then I find myself pitying the woman, because don’t the two questions really go hand in hand? How can I hate someone who was raised in squalor? Don’t we perpetuate the only cycles we know?
And while I’m pondering how a grown woman (who doesn’t have a job) can’t find time to swirl a toilet stick, vacuum or dust… I’m panicked that I never really taught my own children how to clean, when to clean, what to clean! (Not that my house wasn’t clean. I just never took the time.)
Once that little Pandora’s box was opened, cleaning up this disaster zone gave me all the time in the world to transition from hating the woman for destroying my home, to kicking myself for not being a good enough parent in other ways. What else did I not teach my children?! Schools used to offer home economics and shop to teach the adult-y things parents missed. Now I suppose there’s YouTube, but you have to know what to search.
Adulting is Hard
And that was when it hit me. Of course we become what we learn. If we never learned how to be a responsible adult, how can we model responsible adulthood? The only way to break a destructive cycle is to find another way. Since I’ve already proven I’m no life expert, I need help from those who are.
If you’re especially good at adulting, please take a moment to complete this quick Life Survey. Your data may become part of a handy dandy guide to help floundering humans to become a more responsible adults.
