Nurtured in Neatness

By Sharon MacDonell

Is the capacity for neatness gained by nature or nurture?

I just wanna know.

My mother has spent all day, every Sunday of my life, cleaning. Sundays were not fun when I was a kid--no beach, no picnics, no Ice Capades. At my house the Lord did not rest on the seventh day. Sunday was Cleaning Day.

Unlike Mrs. Cleaver who scrubbed the oven in high heels, pearls and a Belgian lace apron, Mom donned a shapeless gray sweat suit and armed herself with the chemicals and tools that would wrestle free every last speck of dirt, dust and grime hiding in our household.

Much like the dirt, my siblings and I hid on those Sundays, wishing only to be left in the comfy mess that was our territory—our rooms. Warned we would not experience the warm sunshine again until our rooms were immaculate, we settled in for the long haul and made our messes even more appalling.

“What are you doing in here!?” poor Mom would demand whenever she checked on our progress. We offered smiles and shrugs as she marched away in disgust, her muttering inaudible but for the odd, accentuated swear word.

So if my mother values orderliness to this degree, how can I be so innately sloppy? It must be nurture over nature. It’s unthinkable that my siblings and I received any tidy genes from my mother.

But then again, having been nurtured in neatness, why did we not follow in our mother’s fastidious footsteps? There must be a Law of Reverse Nurture—instead of learning to love cleanliness, our mother turned us against it! Any personal attribute that creates such obsessive behavior, we must have concluded, can’t be healthy. So we rejected mom’s spotless counters, scum-free bathtubs and freshly washed floors. Better to maintain sanity amid the crumbs, scum and sticky linoleum.

Fortunately, I married a fellow who is also, shall we say, neatness challenged. He can hardly complain about the chaos in the kitchen when he’s just trashed the den. Once I pushed my luck, though, asking my husband if he thought I was a slob.

“Yes,” he said, then winced and tried to qualify, “at least compared to most women.” I drew a deep breath to argue the point, but then let the air seep out through my open, indignant mouth. What could I say? He was right. And just like women who really don’t want to know how their rear ends look in pink polyester pants, I shouldn’t have asked.

But things have changed around our house. Seeing how busy I am with my two pre-school daughters, my mother-in-law (a tidy one herself) gave me a check to cover two years of weekly maid service. Of course I could have taken umbrage and questioned her motivation, but rather than hurt her feelings, I immediately hired a team of housecleaners to come each Thursday. And what was the happy result? I have never cleaned so much in my life!

What was I thinking? Invite two professional cleaners to my house every week so they can peer contemptuously into every grimy corner? At first I corralled our girls into the family room early each Thursday, then dashed around, picking up toys and underwear so the cleaners might vacuum. I threw unsorted clutter into drawers and closets, so they could dust. I broke my own tradition and actually made the beds, mere hours before they were going to change the sheets. I was desperate that the women not realize the futility of their efforts. But of course, it wasn’t long before I saw in my cleaning ladies’ faces the same look of stunned disapproval my mother always wore on Sundays. Since then, I straighten up as heroically as time allows and then beat it out the door with my girls in tow, long before the ladies, and their eyes, arrive.

Perhaps one day my girls will tease me about Terrible Thursdays, as I tease my mom about those dreadful Sundays. But I believe they will benefit from the Law of Reverse Nurture and perhaps become such neat and tidy women that they won’t have to hide behind the sofa every time the doorbell rings.

Sharon MacDonell lives in Troy, Michigan with her husband and two daughters.
She has published essays in Christian Science Monitor, Love’s Journey 2 and MetroParent.
You may contact her at smmacd@gmail.com.