By Brenda Boykin
Alderson
Cleaning Up After Your Grown Children
I have been thinking for some time now that how the world considers a child as being grown because they turn 18 is hilarious. It’s like blowing smoke up someone’s butt. It may impress them, but the truth remains the truth. If anyone really expects that a person is suddenly grown up and parents are no longer involved, there are more mental problems in the world than the ones I have.
Even my son’s doctor and dentist offices made him complete new paperwork. I was cut off from getting the information I had freely been given all his life. I was not even allowed to ask questions in some cases. I mean, I could ask but would be informed that only he could inform me.
It was only a few months ago I thought I was in trouble because I admitted on a questionnaire at a medical clinic receiving some federal funding that there is a gun in the same household as a minor. This is West Virginia and my son has hunted. It is almost a rite of passage and even I can shoot. He was almost 18 by the time they asked but he killed his first deer years ago.
If you want to know how grown the child is just clean his room after he/she goes off to college. For some time I have been forbidden to go into his room while he was free to go into every room in the house. When it would come time for me to wash dishes, I would have to holler for him to bring me any dishes, glasses, cups, or utensils from his room. If I left out anything, it did not get brought out. When I would wash clothes, I had to request the dirty clothes be brought to me. I would get some and often get clean clothes to wash again for good measure because he had never put them up.
Granted, the day of packing for college, he discovered he lost his wallet. This included his college ID, Social Security card, and other important items as well as his money. He tore up his room and every other room in the house looking for it. We had others at all locations he had been to looking for it also. It is 3:30 p.m. and he has to leave at 6 a.m. the next morning. We had not even packed yet. I decided to take the chance that we might be able to get him another driver’s license so he would at least have a photo ID. Good decision on my part because when I went to my room something told me to shake my bed covers. There it was on my bed. He had taken a seat on my bed when he went into my room to put something up and it fell out of his pocket.
I have since spent every day working on cleaning his room and I am not through yet. Besides the dirt and dust, dishes and dirty clothes that never came out of his room, I have found things that were suppose to go to college with him, including paperwork and one lonely shoe of a pair. I hope he carried enough underwear.
I miss the slob!