Thursday 15 July 2010

How idle threats fail dismally in the mother-daughter relationship: talk to the door


It's as simple as this. I tell Precious Princess that if she doesn't clean up her dressing table I will drag its contents into a garbage bag and haul it outside into the big stinky bin.
This pic has not been tampered with. The drawers were dragged out on this angle when I entered the room to gather incriminating photographic evidence against my eldest daughter.
This is how a 19-year-old from a good family treats her own flesh and blood. How she pays back the mother, who's sacrificed her youth and sanity for her family.
I'm a neat person. Not fastidious. But I do dust occasionally. And I enjoy a certain amount of order in my life. So, where did I go wrong with daughter No 1?
Or will it all come good when she leaves home (please God?) and someone who has nothing at all to do with la famiglia cuts her down to size. Calls an ace an ace, a spade a spade. A mess a disgusting mess.
The really funny thing (always on reflection) is that when I point out the chaos that is her room (and I've only photographed one little bit of it) she looks at me like I'm the crazy one.
"Ok, ok, ok, ok. I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it." The usual response. Door slams in my face. I nag at door. At least door doesn't answer back.
Three weeks later, the dressing table doesn't look all that different. Though she has managed to shut the drawers.
PS: She doesn't know that I took this pic. That is my revenge.

5 comments:

Eleni Konstantine said...

Well a drawer for each week it seems like Shayne. LOL on the photo being revenge. Though taking a photo of my writing desk may make me clean it up! ;)) I'm in the sorting, throwing, filing stage in the study and so it balloons out more. I see improvement in the room but not my desk!!!

Anonymous said...

I can see a pattern here. The way you discover if you’re Princess isn’t by listening to your mother it’s by opening your eyes, late, in the morning and seeing the inside of a castle. Daughter No 1 must be disappointed with her environment. I understand completely I always wanted a Porsche for eighteenth birthday. They let me down terribly. One has so much trouble getting hold of good parents these days. ------ Shane, some advice: Don’t be such an old bag. Why not try the time honoured landlord/doggy tenant approach. Put the rent up; allow market forces into play. --- Oh and don’t be a girl’s mother of a landlord, let the tenant work out what’s going on for herself. ----- Besides I can see a story on that disapprovingly small dresser ---- Erin

Shayne said...

An old bag? Erin, get off my blog!
But seriously, I think you and PP have a lot in common. The Porsche is a good example. She was extremely upset that there wasn't a car tied in a pink ribbon waiting in the driveway when she turned 18.
Who isn't disappointed in their parents at some point in time?

AJ Blythe said...

Lol, Shayne - you could do what my Mum did when I was a kid... she threatened to clean our rooms, and then she did.

Far worse than actually just chucking it all in the bin, she actually sorted through everything *eeeek*

Shayne said...

Hi Anita,
That's what my mother does when she comes over to help me keep the chaos in check. I can't keep her out of the kids' rooms. She says she does it just to make sure their rooms are tidy, but some of the stuff she's found in older daughter's room is none of my - or her - business - and I tell her so.

Nice to see you back in action.
Shayne