April 29, 2023

"I solved this very simple with my kids. Clean up or the toys go in jail. I swept everything in a black garbage bag..."

"... taped the top up with masking tap[e], and put a date on it with one week out. If you don't want to lose your toys for a week, clean up your mess kids!"

28 comments:

typingtalker said...

The whole story is in the headline. No need to read further.

Suggested headline ...

My husband didn't do any chores while I worked 10-hour days -- he's sorry now.

Ann Althouse said...

"The whole story is in the headline. No need to read further."

Yeah, that's why I added nothing on the marriage break-up topic. But there is something to be said about the children not participating in cleaning up their own messes, and I thought the commenter had a good method. It cleans up the mess quickly and it disciplines the children with deterrent effect.

tommyesq said...

Writing about a Tik Tok video about a marriage between two unknown people, and taking everything said by just one of those people as undeniably true is what passes for "journalism" these days.

Big Mike said...

I have a vivid recollection of pulling my toys out of a pile of trash swept into the center of the kitchen floor as tears poured down my cheeks and the cheeks of my sisters. Poor little Pink the Bunny never was really clean after that. My wife and I couldn’t be that cruel, so we invented the “pick up game.” It worked very well — we had a little song to go with it, and did (a small) part of the work, and they were happy to pick up. One day we played the pick up game while our young son had school friends over, and they quickly disabused him that picking up was a fun activity, but by then he was old enough to understand responsibilities.

There certainly are men who do not provide good support to their working wives, but there are also a lot of women who seem blind to the amount of work that their spouses do because it’s outside. The grass doesn’t mow itself. Driveways and sidewalks don’t shovel the snow off themselves. Decks don’t repair themselves. A husband that does hard physical work all day long may be pretty beat when he gets home. Just sayin’

Kevin said...

I thought the commenter had a good method.

I thought that was standard operating procedure.

sean said...

Two thoughts:

It won't be any easier with no husband at all. It doesn't seem like he's the one making the mess, after all.

Possibly the husband is doing more work than she realizes. I had a friend who had a fight with her husband; he moved out for three days; at that point she realized that he had been doing a lot of things she hadn't noticed or had taken for granted.

rwnutjob said...

Discipline your children. What a novel concept today. Disciplined children are happy children. Case in point: the grocery checkout.
You know what I'm talking about.
Stop being their friend.

RideSpaceMountain said...

That'll show him!

Leland said...

The kids will just put Soros DA's in office and those toys will be "no bail" in the future. Tell me that's not descriptive of what is happening in the world today.

Temujin said...

She didn't see that coming before she married the guy?

On the toys, I like it. But then, I don't have little ones running around the house. Oh wait...they're coming to visit next week. Yikes!

Kate said...

@Big Mike -- we were the same. No one likes cleaning up, so everyone pitches in and gets it done. I don't have a pink bunny story but I'm sympathetic.

n.n said...

The masculinist who was never viable, the feminist who never grew up, the progressive perils of juvenile delinquency.

Dude1394 said...

My wife has a surefire method of getting me motivated to get something done or finished. Threaten ( and do ) hire it out. Hiring a maid is a hell of a lot less expensive than a divorce. Same goes for men, you cannot come to an agreement, hire someone to do it.

sean said...

A third thought: I sure hope the children don't see this when they're older, since basically it says, "Your father and I would still be together if you hadn't been such bad, messy children."

Jamie said...

I object to the "It's time to put away your toys, okaaaay?" formulation that I hear a lot. We never let ourselves end a - call it what it is, a command, with "okay."

We didn't have toy jail. Wish I'd thought of it. But our kids, fortunately, did as they were told.

TaeJohnDo said...

I did the garbage bin trick with the boys. It worked well. The other thing that happened was I would do the laundry and put the folded cloths in my oldest's room to put away. He'd throw them into the dirty cloths bin. And that's how he came to doing his own laundry from the 5th grade on.

Tom T. said...

Hopefully this is fake YouTube theater, because otherwise it's really sad. She had five kids (and five cats, and some dogs) with this guy, and she's only now figuring out that he's no help? And she blows up hey family with a hugely public shaming? A family that big either has to run a really tight ship or live with a lot of chaos; it doesn't look like either parent can manage the former.

Rusty said...

don't get me started

MadisonMan said...

I’ve worked six ten-hour days in a row with one day off for being a sick day,
So -- she didn't work 6 10-hour days in a row. That's my read.

Marcus Bressler said...

That propensity to make a mess didn't just happen. The parents did not do enough early on in child-rearing to prevent this from happening. That house is disgusting.

MarcusB. THEOLDMAN

rcocean said...

"My husband didn't do any chores while I worked 10-hour days"

And when he's single, he still won't to any chores.

Viva La Difference.

rcocean said...

My mother would snatch up my left out toys and tell me the "Toy Monster" got them. The only way to keep them safe would be to put them away.

when I got older, she just nagged me.

Both methods work.

Rabel said...

She's gonna be a real catch for some lucky fella.

Big Mike said...

@Temujin, if the kids think of them as “your” toys they might just call your bluff.

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

My life is changing in so many ways
I don't know who to trust anymore
There's a shadow running through my days
Like a beggar going from door to door

I was thinking that maybe I'd get a maid
Find a place nearby for her to stay
Just someone to keep my house clean
Fix my meals and go away

A maid
A man needs a maid
A maid

- Neal Young

farmgirl said...

I think it’s called: following through.

Bunkypotatohead said...

After the divorce he will get half her salary. And half the messy house.

DavidUW said...

She’s fat, ugly and a nag. The guy wants a divorce and is just waiting for her to file.