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My daughter and I on ‘why should you?’.
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Yes, I did get the delighted shrieks when she saw the food and no, we did not go to a hotel in the end. |
 Our wonderful time together, resting at the beach. |
So walking and staying away from the city we did.
In hindsight it was actually great to stay where she lived because that gave me, as her mother, a peek into this side of her life. As a proud mother I am very pleased to say that she had her small room beautifully organized. She used very clever storage systems and her whole set up worked a treat. It all looked very neat, workable, clean and tidy.
But the communal area outside her room was a totally different experience altogether.The state of the bathroom and the kitchen was unreal and my hands were itching to give everything a damn good scrub.
Luckily I remembered in time that that was NOT my place to do, so I held back; I know my daughter well enough not to step over certain boundaries.
During one of our long walks and great talks I had to ask how come that the rest of the house was in such a state.
I could have guessed the answer.
The flatmates simply could not get their act together.
After moving in my daughter had proposed a roster for doing the cleaning but it turned out that in the end she was the only one who kept to it. The others simply did not care.
I could not help but burst out laughing when she told me they were not even using the dishwasher any more as nobody could get their head around emptying it. So there sat a perfectly fine machine, idle and unused!
After several turns of emptying the dishwasher and cleaning filth that had piled up from previous weeks, when nothing had been done, my daughter eventually stopped cleaning too.
She resigned to the fact that they would not have a cooperative cleaning regime.
She reluctantly tolerated the low standard of cleanliness in the communal area and resentfully resorted to cleaning it herself when the dirt and the mess was getting to her.
I could hear in the way she talked that she felt bad about the whole situation but that she had no idea how to think about it or how to solve it.
She was stuck and clearly in an emotional muddle about the whole thing.
Thankfully she was open to hear what I had to offer on the subject.
I have to admit I was grateful that I had something to offer.
Would she have asked me a few years back I would have been confused myself. All that I could have suggested then would have been something like this; “That is all part of life, honey, you are not the only one to have a problem with this“.
Back then all I could see was the same struggle; did all my friends not battle like this with their partners and I myself was no exception then either.
Nobody was better off, in my eyes we all acted like her and her flatmates.
But I have come a long way, so I was in like a shot to introduce integrity and ownership, concepts that could stop this endless ’should I or should I not?’ question for her.
So I started with explaining this behavior from the point of taking ownership thanks to what WomenLikeMe has to say on Ownership as part of the subject on Integrity.
In this case ownership does not mean having the purchase title in your hands. Owning in this context refers to how you relate to your world and how your behavior is that of a responsible and caring owner.
It means answering ‘yes’ to questions like these;- Do you truly own where you live, caring for and loving the things in your life or do some of them suffer from neglect?
- Do you truly own and look after your body by having a good diet, doing exercises and taking time out for example?
- Does your world improve and flourish in your hands; do you keep everything to the standard of a loving owner?
- And when in integrity do you know that you align yourself with the laws of the Universe?
(WomenLikeMe on Integrity)
I reminded her that in the first year that she lived on her own she was not that focused on a clean house herself either. No doubt as a reaction to nagging parents it meant that she too was hard pressed to take ownership of her place during that time.
She laughed and said that I must be pleased that she had gotten over that and had grown into taking ownership of how she wanted her bedroom, at least to be; clean, tidy and organized.
However she was still puzzled; “How does this relate to getting the others to clean too, so I do not have to live in such a mess?” she asked.
“Do my flatmates not need to take ownership as well?”
I answered; “Of course you would like to have others do like you, but you cannot make them take ownership. Ownership is a personal choice (as part of being in integrity) and it is you and only you, who sets the standards of your life and lives with the consequences of that choice.
If others want to be slack that is their choice, but that doesn’t mean you have to. If you do not like the mess, clean it up. If you want to live according to your standard of hygiene and cleanliness and enjoy a nice environment to live in than it is up to you to make it happen, regardless of their behavior.”
She did not like this answer at all and I must admit that at first I struggled with this as well.
What???
Why should I always be the goody two shoes, when others seemingly just do as they please? Why should I have to suffer from other people’s neglect?
Oh it took me a long time to come to terms with this, so I felt for my daughter when I saw her chewing this over and getting her head around the stuff her mother was saying.
“Well“, I said; “You do not have to suffer and get yourself into such an emotional turmoil about your flat. You are wasting a lot of time fighting the situation and look at us, we are talking about it for over an hour now.
To clean up the mess will only take you a small amount of time, then you have the house at a standard you can live with and you can get on with other things with a clear mind that is no longer filled with the muddle this issue is causing. That makes sense, doesn’t it?
By acting this way you have taken ownership. You have chosen to do things in a way that fits with how you desire to live your life. You do not have to lower yourself to a level you actually find unacceptable AND you have to accept that you cannot change other people to live in a way that you want to live.
And be aware that as an owner of your behavior you have choices, but you have to then accept what you have chosen and stop getting upset with the consequences of that choice.
When you really have had a gut full, you can always decide to choose something else and move.
You have choices and if you choose to clean from now on, do it without complaining and clear this muddle in your head. That way your mother will also enjoy a clean bathroom next time around, so we all benefit.”
After all that she gave me a dirty look and kept quiet for a very long time, obviously digesting this new concept of ownership and how it determines relationships.
This talk gave me food for thought as well; doing ownership this way is certainly not easy and a hard concept to grasp.
Ownership in the end is not all about giving, it definitely is also about harvesting the rewards of the invested time and energy AND that it aligns you with the Universe is also pretty good, hmmm.
24 Comments to “My daughter and I on ‘why should you?’.”
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Oh Wilma
This post hit me between the eyes. I have always struggled with ownership. Where do I draw the line on ownership? Where does ownership lie when others do not operate at the same level? How does ownership fully relate to me in my life?
I was in a similar situation to your daughter. I am a tidy person and grew up in a house where tidiness was not a top priority, so I was always at logger heads with my siblings about it.
Now I realize that I never took ownership for being tidy, I took it out on them big time and worse still I made their lives hell because of it. I expected them to be tidy for me. I’d get so annoyed by their slack attitude to doing the household chores, I’d continuously nag at them. I never ever saw it as being out-of-integrity until now.
Wilma, you have given me such clarity here. Thank-You Buddy.
I also think it is so wonderful that you can share your learnings and explanations with your daughter and give her a different perspective that will help her gain freedom in her life.
Hugs to you
Hey Ann-Marie.
I know, this ownership issue has cleared up so much for me too and now I know I so recognize the struggle people have with this.
It is the classic tooth paste tube thing, who puts the lid back on, who squeezes it from the bottom. All issues to irritate the living daylight out of us without us finding a way to deal with it.
Now I know, I am a lot more relaxed about these things and I do not waste so much time on these now minor life issues.
I can get on with sorting out the next one as it seems never ending, getting my life in order.
Enjoy yourself in Ireland and your family won’t understand what is happening right now, you no longer chasing them to clean up.
Will be interesting to see their reaction.
Love Wilma.
Hi Ann Marie – how lovely that you were able to be with her at her level and see life from her side of the tracks so to speak. Wonderful to know she’s organised – so necessary in a small flat. Brilliant that you were able to get out and just walk and enjoy each other’s company.
Sadly it is one of the things that today we have lost – that sense of responsibility for anything that’s beyond our own door – perhaps even inside sometimes .. it is something that really needs to be addressed. Setting an example and keeping up one’s own standards is a start .. hoepfully the caring, sharing world some of us want to live in .. will rub off and we’ll respect each other and our environment more.
Lovely to have you back .. Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories
Hi Hilary, it is Wilma here. Ann-Marie is still in Ireland.
It was wonderful to have such a prescious time together, walking and talking.
And yes, living in a caring and sharing world is possible if we let go of who is the first to start and are willing enough to set an example.
Hilary, thanks for your comment, love Wilma
Hi Wilma! Great discussion on ownership with your daughter – and a good reminder to us all about that subject. I think young people are caught up with the whole “it’s not fair” attitude – it seems to precede a lot of their gripes, doesn’t it? I lived with a roommate once that not only was a slob but she had two crumb-crusher little ones. I hated the messes. So I cleaned. I cleaned all the time. I was the only one that did and I bit the bullet because cleanliness was MY issue, not hers.
You are so right about the energy you can waste fretting over things like this. It took me a lot less energy to clean than to complain – and it was also better for the relationship.
You know, this reminds me of something else that a counselor told me once (in regard to how to handle my teens) – he asked me point blank “Who OWNS this problem?” Great food for thought, eh?
Hi SuZen.
Yes, it has been an interesting exercise for me too how I have come to this point. Passing the buck is so easy to do, not my problem is a standard phrase and why should I if nobody else was another one AND indeed that does not get us anywhere.
Good on you to clean and get on with it. In the beginning it is hard to do but once you let go of the resentment it is so much easier, isn’t it?
I love that I am getting a chance to point this out to my daughter, the world is so confusing these days and to offer some clarity was wonderful. Just as you once heard ‘who owns the problem?”, such a different perspective opens a whole new avenue of behaving that is far more serving to the heart.
Oh, to unlearn all these things take a life time doesn’t it?
Thanks Suzen, great food for thought indeed and an useful explanation to base doing things differently on.
Love Wilma
As usual, I loved how you brought this down to a very specific story and example. This is a tough one, so often we face situations like this, especially in relationships – we wait for others to change, resenting when they don’t, or give up on getting what we want/need and resent that instead! This theme of taking ownership, and releasing the resentment, is very powerful and very well-expressed through this example.
Hi Lisa.
It has given me a whole insight too. It is practical and yet doing this can lead to a higher purpose, I think.
learning to live by your own guiding principles in daily life will spill over to other areas where you take ownership.
Thank you for hearing me, Love Wilma.
HI Wilma,
This is such an interesting read. I loved the back and forth you had with your daughter. I used to be a “it not fair, why should i always be good” category. I could get into a debate and get angry about something in a minute. It took me a long long time and a lot of heartache to get to a point where i started taking ownership for my own actions and surroundings and realizing that in being constantly upset with everything i was only hurting myself and noone else really cared. Its at this point I took true ownership and started thinking of doing things myself for ME and for everyone around me. Today I am happier doing things for another persons happiness, cause in doing so I am getting immense satisfaction and happiness too. So basically its a win-win for me. And i so like it.
Thank you for reminding me of this issue thats been and will always remain dear to my heart.
Lots of love
Zeenat.
I loved this post and loved all the comments, as well. Just this year I read something by Byron Katie about picking up socks. She talked, just like you did, about how when others don’t do what we want them to and we’re upset about it, whose problem it is? Ours, since we’re the ones suffering! How much easier it is just to pick up the socks, ourselves, and NOT suffer. Of course, we may suffer because of the, “But they should WANT to pick up their socks” argument, but as Katie would say (and as you and others pointed out), if they don’t want to, that’s the truth of the situation. We can’t change what they do or don’t do, but we can change how we respond. (And sometimes I think in doing so, we rub off on others in positive ways.)
Hi Zeenat.
I chuckled when I read how you described yourself when you were in constant disagreement and upset with the world around you. I can just see it
AND isn’t it amazing to then come to this conslusion “in being constantly upset with everything i was only hurting myself and noone else really cared”.
No one does care about your upsets and you are not making life and your relationships work for you. Isn’t being able to observe that a great place to be in? You champ for getting there!
And I bet your life is a lot more joyful and productive than ever.
But getting there is such a journey and I found that I so needed an explanation of what was happening, what was going on and WHAT I should do abiut this muddle.
To have the distinction of ownership has really supported me in getting a workable understanding and solution.
Now it is so clear, all the frustrations and irrirations and fighting windmills have gone, phew.
AND I have more clarity to focus on what I am really here for.
To have such a whining, upset co-worker is not fun for the people around me AND for the universe to work with.
It is in these little but practical behavior corrections that I feel I am finding my way to a higher purpose life. I know it is important to clean up my own mess first before I am capable of working at a higher level.
As always, I loved your sharing Zeenat. Hugs Wilma
Hi Megan.
What I like about this ownership concept is that it is so common sense and somehow I feel that in life we have lost common sense. It might be because we have lost a community around us who taught us common sensly how to pull our socks up until we could do it ourselves.
I love how Byron Katie does bring everything back to common sense and I also love the fact that for me this way of living makes me feel good too. Who wants to complain all the time and feel helpless?
I love your kind of ‘but but’ scenario when you wrote this . . .’we may suffer because of the, “But they should WANT to pick up their socks” argument’ and it is up to us to see the trap that arguments like that gets us in.
It is not about being righteous, it is about making my life work in the way I want to.
Thank you Megan for encouraging us with the possibility that it might rub off, love Wilma
Hi Wilma,
Oh what fun you and your daughter must have had.
Your story reminds me of when our youngest was still at home. She felt her room was “her” space and she could keep it however she wanted. I agreed as it was a reflection of her personality. But, keeping it clean was always a bone on contention.
Being a tidy person myself, I remember one particular time when after I had cleaned the whole house and had it looking spotless. she came out of her room and looked around. Not all that much longer she asked me where the dusting spray and window cleaner were, plus the vacuum. She said the house looked so nice, it made her room look terrible. I just smiled.
As you might have guessed, she grew up and is a magnificent housekeeper – probably better than me. Who knew?
P.S. The advice you gave your daughter was spot on. We do have choices. It’s what we decide to do with them.
Haha Barbara, what a priceless story about your daughter and what a win/win in the end. Great that you could keep quiet and showed ownership when she did not rise to your standards.
, Love Wilma
I too do think nagging is never the way to go, rolemodeling ownership is in my books a much more harmonious way to go and encouraging stories like yours will in the end help us to get there.
So you have done your good deed by showing that rolemodeling ownership can work
Wilma,
This is a huge learning curve for your daughter. What a gift you’ve given her.
I learned 30 years ago (married 37) to pick up my husband’s shoes because he wasn’t going too. Should he pick up his own? Heck yes! But he doesn’t so I do. I’d rather be happy than right.
Now I’m grateful I have the opportunity to pick up his shoes and I thank God he’s in my life!
Yes, rather be happy then right, man oh man is that a lesson to learn and once you have how it pays off!
Letting go of what you think is fair or right is letting go of struggle and fight and to get that in our thick head is a major thing.
Once learned though is gives for a higher quality of life and clever you to learn it so early in your marriage and yes I am delighted that I could pass it on to my daughter and that she was so willing to listen.
Tess, I am trusting you are having a good time?
Thanks for adding value to the post, Love Wilma.
Kia ora Wilma,
I arrived here via Robin’s place and love finding such a discovery. I particularly am impacted by this post of you and your daughter. I am currently struggling with my teen age son and find this inspirational. Lessons learned by us all.
Cheers,
Robb
Hi Robb.
Yes, Robin’s blog is a great place to meet great people.
It is a really interesting exercise to mentor your young ones into their place in this world. It is intersting for us parents as well as it does require some clarity on our part AND they will point our where you are not walking the talk.
It is raising consciousness at every level of every part of the small family community.
There is so much confusion for children and parents and I love that the explanations I have give me a chance to clean up some of the muddle we are all in.
Best wishes with your son, make time to hear him as you want him to hear you.
Love Wilma
Hi Wilma,
I liked this post and the way you talked to your daughter. Though very less people tend to take initiative to do the things and pull others in to it, at the end, they would feel elated for their hard work and energy spent on it.
I guess many daughters and sons should read this post and make themselves understand the value of taking up ownership as well as living in harmony.
Regards,
Remya
PS: Plz do stumble upon my blog and let me know your thoughts on my posts(http://itsmeremz.blogspot.com)
Hi Remya.
The world is a confusing place and very incongruent. People say one thing, know in their heart what to do and then everybody does something different and in the end does not feel good about it.
We have learned to distance ourselves and that is not how we actually want to live. We need to unleanr a whole lot of things, everybody and that includes the children as well as the parents.
Thanks for your addition to this post, love Wilma
Hi, Wilma.
I’ve followed over George’s post about you and all I can say is wow! Love your blog. Love the theme. Love the passion, truth, sharing…
So glad to have found you – I know I’ll be back!
Michele | aka Raw Juice Girl´s last blog ..Some Sunday Fun + News
Hi Michele, great to see you here and trusting George’s recommendation and thank you for your kind words too.
I am glad my sharing speaks to you, we all can learn from each other and then one day we all are on the same page and this world has become a healthy and joyful place. I would love to have you back, we all can use healthy input.
Hi Wilma!
I read this yesterday (finally! so sorry!) WOW. It really does speak to me about my roommates. Funny thing is….last night when I got home the dishes were all done. Good advice here, very eye opening, like I said – I choose to be happy and I will do that no matter what. If I have to clean up cool, if not I’m good there too. I *really* appreciate the dishes. I am going to be much more grateful for the little things like that. Thank you for all your advice and help!
Hugs & Love,
Angelia xoxoxo
Angelia Sims´s last blog ..Blog 4 Cause
Oh Angelia, isn’t it funny how somehow we have lost the skill of working out how to live together. For me these concepts have been a real eye opener as well, as for the life of me before knowing this I could not work it out either. I was firmly in the who is right and who is wrong department and of course never could get it sorted that way.
I too agree, the universe certainly has humor! Great to have come home to clean dishes and acknowledging them is also confirming good bhavior.
Choosing happy is a great concept isn’t it and something we have in our power to do.
Than YOU for continuing the conversation, it is such a great way to learn from each other as we go, because concepts only mean anything when we can experience the difference AND like you I want difference in my life that sorts out these things.
Hugs and love to you AND your flatmates, Wilma xox