Mess and Madness

You’d think that with four kids in the house B”H, I’d be way over the mess. But, I’m not. I’m still very, very bothered by it. I just can’t get used to the toys playing hide-and-seek in unreachable places. I still don’t understand how the laundry manages to exponentially multiply like a self-replicating cell. And the dishes- what, do they have invisible legs? How did so many get into the sink when I wasn’t looking? Maybe they hate me and they want to see me suffer. I sometimes wonder if they’re laughing at how many times I have to wash them in a day.

I recently read a part of Rav Arush’s new book, “The Garden of Education”, and it was like Rav Arush wrote it just for me. He emphatically states: “Living rooms are supposed to look like they’re lived in, not like museums! Mothers who place more importance on having a neat and clean house than on letting their children enjoy the home are doing great damage to their kids.” Ouch.

It’s not like I yell at them about the mess. At least, not most of the time. I’m usually pretty lenient with letting them tear up the house. I realize that they are kids, and kids make a mess. But sometimes, I get overwhelmed with the mess- especially when they refuse to even pick up even one toy after they’re done. Everywhere I turn there is nary a square foot that doesn’t have something strewn across it. And when I think about how I’m the only one that’s going to clean it, I sometimes start to feel like I’m suffocating, literally drowning in the mess.

I have been asking G-d to help me understand why I have such a big problem with it. Since I didn’t get a direct answer right away, I decided to ask my father if we ever had a mess in the house when I was young. He replied, “No, we didn’t. Your mother and I always kept it very clean.” (Plus the daily housekeeper!) Plus the fact that my sister and I are four years apart, and my brother and I are seven years apart. (I’m not really sure how that makes a difference, but it makes me feel better to write it.) Plus the fact that we just didn’t make as much of a mess that my kids do. Is it because we were two girls and a much younger boy? I don’t know…

As I was mentally searching for the mess in my old house, I happened to pass by my father, who was vacuuming the living room floor and humming a cheerful tune. As I looked for a mess in the bedroom, I nearly bumped into him as he was making our beds. I went to scope out the kitchen, and poof, there he was again! Whoa, Abba, how did you manage to get to the kitchen that fast? And all the while humming that darned cheerful tune?

Maybe I had many golem-type fathers that did a bunch of housework while whistling to themselves. Or maybe my father was on the cast of Star Trek, and he was able to beam himself from one room to another in a nanosecond.

As a kid, I took for granted the fact that I had a neat and clean house. But now, I’m really appreciating it. Too much, in fact. I have realized that there was a downside to growing up in a museum: when I now see my kitchen table (or lack thereof) covered in stuff, I begin to get annoyed. The annoyance grows exponentially with the amount of stuff all over the house. If I could show you a graph of the messy stuff/annoyance, it would look like a stock whose value shot up to infinity overnight.

I’m not being at all ungrateful; I’m just pointing out that even though we may have the best intentions for our children, sometimes the things we do may affect them negatively. I recently read a great example about this in “Laws for Women” by the Ben Ish Chai. He warned affluent parents not to live in an exaggerated standard of luxury, because if one day their kids won’t be able to afford that same standard, living modestly will be torturous for them.

It really makes sense. And, it helped me to learn to let go of the need to clean the house all the time. I certainly don’t want to raise impossible husbands who will get upset when their wives don’t have the house in perfect order! They’re not bothered by the mess, and by leaving the house in a constant state of near-chaos, I think I’m actually doing them a favor.

But, as time went on, I wasn’t as healed from my own annoyance as I would have liked. So I did a lot more thinking and asking G-d about it, and He delivered, as usual. In previous articles, I referred to the fact that my mother always expressed her dismay at my inability to keep the house in order. Never mind the fact that I was busy from morning till night. I certainly never ran off to get weekly manicures, or had extended, leisurely shopping trips like a certain sister I know…

Nonetheless, her constant disapproval worked its way under my skin, and traveled through my body until its poison reached my brain. Oy, if only my spiritual blood-brain barrier were more fortified.

As I took a deeper look into the mess, I began to see exactly what was upsetting me so much. I began to understand that I viewed the mess as a reflection of me. The mess is proof that I am lazy, not in control, unable to cope with the stress in my life, and generally chaotic. The mess showed me that I need help just to survive, because I’m not strong enough to handle my life on my own. I’m not strong enough or mature enough to be a mother of four kids and be the CEO of my family.  I’ve been programmed to be dependent on “someone else” in order to live.

Wow, what a relief that was, to uncover the source of my problem! I literally feel that I am able to take a deep breath and not be scared that I’m going to hyperventilate because of the overwhelming stress I have placed upon myself. I am certainly not lazy, and I feel that I’m growing stronger each day. I am more independent that I thought I could ever be- if  not, I would never have made aliyah or let my husband leave me and the kids for weeks at a time spreading emuna around the world!

The key to surviving the stress with the smile is, obviously, emuna. But there is a certain aspect to emuna that you must apply when dealing with issues that really stress you out. Many times, if you examine closely enough, you can connect the issue with the way you feel about yourself deep down. All of us suffer from varying degrees of self-persecution; Rav Arush says it’s the biggest plague of our generation. The hard work is finding out exactly how we’re persecuting ourselves. Much of the time it’s hidden, and we have to look for clues in our surroundings to find it.

Rav Arush also points out that much, if not all, of our self-persecution can be traced back to the way our parents spoke to us. If they were constantly insulting us or telling us that we’re weak, not good enough, not smart enough, etc., then no matter how much we tuned them out, their negative messages still made their way into our subconscious.

Rebbe Nachman gives us the cure for self-persecution: look for your good points! Most of us are so busy focusing on what’s wrong with us, that we rarely take the time to think about what’s right with us! So I applied this thinking and I realized something- I’m a strong woman! And I’m happy to say that there are so many amazing, strong, hard-working women that are doing their maximum to properly care for their families! Don’t worry, men, you are all supermen as well!

So our mission is twofold: 1) search and destroy- find and uproot the negative messages that are hiding like land mines beneath our most challenging issues 2) DON’T pass on this negativity to our children!

I must do my best to speak to my children with words of love and encouragement, and not break them down. When they upset me, I must do my best to keep my temper in check and not retaliate with force. When I do need to show them consequences, I should resist the temptation to turn it into a punishment. I should never, ever make them feel bad about themselves.

Sometimes it feels unfair that I have to be the one to break generations of parental and self-persecution. But I believe that G-d knows that I have the strength to do it, and I have no doubt that He feels the same way about you!

If you want to stop being a victim of self-persecution, listen to Rabbi Brody’s excellent CD, “Azamra.”If you want to raise your children in the healthiest way possible, read “The Garden of Education” by Rav Shalom Arush.