Last Sunday at church Ethan was asked, "What is something nice that your mom does for you?" He sat there for 10 seconds, tapping his finger to his lips and looking up at the ceiling (and I was thinking, "Come on. I do millions of nice things for you!"), when he finally announced, "She makes my bed."Then another member of the Primary presidency turned to me and said jokingly, "Erin. You make his bed? Why don't you make him make his own bed?" And I said, "Actually, I don't know where he got that from. We don't make beds at out house."
And it's the truth. We don't bother making beds at our house. I have too many things I am strict about as a parent; making beds is one thing I just don't care about. I mean, you just sleep in it the next night anyway. They will just get wrinkled right away again. Not worth the 10 seconds to smooth and fluff.
And now I have another confession: I also let my kids jump on the bed. I know, my mom is probably tsk tsk-ing right now, but I want to let them have a little fun. And they have bunk beds, so they can't jump on their own. That means it is my bed they are turning into a trampoline. It's fun to watch them do "cool tricks" on my bed. They love falling flat on their backs onto the bed. I watch them while they do it, and hey, they haven't gotten hurt so far!
Do any of you let your children (or yourselves - I'm not prejudiced) do anything that most people would consider unconventional?
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I let my boys stay up late. 10-10:30. We work odd hours...and they sleep later if you let them stay up late. It just works for us. I also don't make them eat breakfast foods for breakfast. If they want left overs from dinner the night before or a sandwich..thats fine by me. I don't however allow junk (cookies, candy etc.)
I too let my kids jump on my bed, the couches, everything! Maybe your son meant, mom my doesn't make me make my bed because that is the nicest thing a mom can do for their sons.
I let my kids eat cereal for dinner. They LOVE it!!
I tell them to wipe their snot on their shirt when I got nothin else handy.
And sometimes we eat cookies for dinner on Sunday.
And sometimes I "forget" to tell them to brush their teeth.
Wow. It all seems really bad when you write it out like that!
Just so you know, I am exactly like you except that I do the opposite. :) We don't really make beds either, and my boys have bunks and always jump on my bed, but I HATE it. I'm way too uptight I guess. To be honest, I think it's more about being territorial than worrying about their safety. I just want them to stop using my room like a play room. I need a refuge.
About once a month, I get a major bug up my butt and decide that my kids beds MUST be made every day. They're not good about doing it themselves and so I do it. I usually get sick of it after about 3 days and so I stop until it irritates me again. I make my own bed every day. I heard somewhere that if you keep you bed made and no dishes in your sink, it makes your whole house feel clean. It's true. Some rooms in my house can be a dump, but as soon as I look in the empty sink or walk into my bedroom and see the made bed, it doesn't seem so bad.
I don't know that I do anything unconventional. I'm not an excessive worrier over my kids. So, I suppose I give them a few more freedoms than some moms would. That might be considered unconventional.
I allow my kids to eat sweetened cereal. The only time I ever got to eat sweetened cereal was when we went camping and those mini-cereal-box packs came with sweetened stuff that my mom would never buy. To tell the truth, everytime I pour it for them, I feel guilty. But my husband is the one that said it must be allowed. Not really sure what his reasoning is.
We never make beds at our house either. I'm like you: you're just going to mess it up at the end of the day, anyway!
I don't know if this is unconventional or not, but my kids have free reign with the art supplies. Occasionally, we will do an art project together, but for the most part they have full access to everything (except finger paints) and pretty much do what they want with it. Personally, I think it nourishes their creativity. (besides making a fairly large mess. .)
Oh yeah, we jump on the bed. In fact during training this past year I had no reservations about jumping to our hearts content on someone else's bed--they were all king size beds! But I don't allow couch jumping--that's absolutely out.
Ok, I'll admit, I'm totally OCD about making the beds daily and I change the sheets EVERY Monday. We got a new bed about 2 years ago, so we have an extra queen in the spare room, so I don't have sheets or blankets on it and it is "the jumping bed". The kids totally love it!
We never make the bed either. Unless we've watched the sheets. I would let my kids jump too!
To tell you the truth, I'm strict about a lot of things--bed making included--but there are a few things that I let slide. Yes, I'll admit to them, but please don't think I'm gross. I let my kids eat in the car and on the carpet in the family room. And here's the really bad thing I do: I don't make my kids bathe every night. My ten-year-old likes to bathe, so he does it on his own. But my younger kids, well, if I don't see the dirt, I'll let them go two days with no bath. (And, in the summer, I count a trip to the swimming pool as a bath sometimes.)
I let the kids jump on the bed and I also don't remember to have them wash their hands before they eat. I must say though that my children are rarely every sick!! In fact Owen has never thrown up before. I am like you with the bed thing. Growing up I use to sleep on top of the covers because I hated making my bed and my mom always wanted me to so I slept on top so I never had to make it!!
Most days they take care of their own breakfast and lunch. If I make pancakes or French toast, it's an event, and they gush.
See, I'm teaching them self-sufficiency. Yeah, that's it . . .
Amen!
We never make beds either, though my husband probably wishes we would :)
Oh and jumping on the bed, you are not alone at all. A poll on the babycenter, around 90% of moms said their kids jump on the bed, I even blogged about that a while ago here:
http://emmymom2.blogspot.com/2009/03/reason-why.html
You are not alone at all. I figure there are things that are important and other things, that don't matter as much.. I don't want to be telling them no all day.
i don't make my bed either....
and, my "unconventional" list is too long for this comment section.
my kids have a tv in their room and i let them fall asleep with it on. i know....i've heard it's not good for them to get a good night of sleep, but we've had no trouble and if it keeps them out of our bed, i'm all for it!
When my boys were little, I would totally go check them out of school "for an appointment" and then we would go to the movies.
I hate when they are in school
We never make beds either. Unless we have company coming to stay the night, and then we make the beds for them... with fresh sheets. But for us, rumpled is fine. I agree with the futility of the concept.
And i Looooove Melissa's school appointment idea. I may just have to try that one myself.
If we didn't make our beds when we were kids, we had to do the dishes. That childhood habit still sticks with me---I can NOT leave my room without the bed being made.
Jumping on the bed.
Diving in the laundry.
Fighting with marshmallows.
Breakfast for dinner at least twice a week.
I could go on and on.
Ha ha, you're awesome Erin. I love that comment back you gave her...so funny! We don't always make beds--it's been recent. I do let them jump occasionally, but it seems Devon gets hurt all the time, so I can't let them like I used to as much...bummer. They do jump on the couch downstairs and all sorts of things other moms might cringe at, but you do what works for your own family, right?!
I don't make my bed unless I know someone is going to see it, and by them seeing it unmade it would embarass me in some way. That's a very small number of people, so my bed is rumpled and looking slept in 99.5% of the time. :)
We never make our beds. Although my Mom taught my 5 year old to make hers, so she does it sometimes.
My kids don't clean their rooms, in general. About once a month, my Mom comes and does an overhaul. At least my kids TRY to help her...
Wow, I love my Mom!!
I should probably say this anonymously but it doesn't even faze me when my little one eats food off the floor. I know that's super gross, but of all the things he puts in his mouth, slightly trampled food is not the top thing I worry about.
I let my kids stay up late. I'm frequently up late and if I let them stay up later, they usually sleep in the next morning, allowing me to sleep in too.
I let them eat cookies for breakfast.
And they rarely make their beds.
The only time we ever make our bed are on the days we wash the sheets. When I was a kid my parents got a new bed. They drug the old mattress out to the front yard and we jumped on that thing for hours. So fun.
I am so glad that you posted about this! Did I miss the age of your son in the post? We are going to start a "chore chart" for our new 4 year old this summer and making her bed is one of the items we plan to put on the list!
I never used to make my bed, but my husband trained me to do it early in our marriage. Now I'm a bed-making nazi.
I must say that I do let my kids do things that shouldn't be done like every once in a long while we have ice cream for dinner, so don't worry. Kids need to have fun every once in a while and enjoy each day.
Zoe is allowed to jump on her (or our) bed and does so daily while SCREAMING/singing "5 little monkeys." She's also allowed to eat food wherever, drink water out of the squirt bottle, and live off of goldfish crackers (though we do try to discourage that last one). I'm sure there are more.
We SO Don't make beds at our house either. My mom doesn't, she never made us, it's just like you said: a waste of time and energy because you'll just sleep in it again.
I let Shelby climb on the back of the couch to look out the window. I know a lot of people who don't let their kids stand on the couch either. We don't really care. Not like they're nice couches anyway! Maybe if they were new, I'd care.
It looks like everybody has their own way. isn't it nice that we live in such a place that we can pretty much decide what we allow our kids? I am so thankful for our freedom to let our kids jump on the bed if they so desire, or we desire, as the case may be. And as for making the bed, I used to be a FLyLADY fan, love her, but I washed the sheets so much, they wore out and I bruised my knuckles making bunkbeds too frequently!
I wish my mom felt the same way.
She's so strict about bed making. It drives me insane.
We never make beds either. I mean, I smooth my own out if my mom is coming over or something, but that's about it.
I allow the boys to jump only on Calvin's crappy bed - isn't that terrible? I'd never let them mess up the springs in my own. Nice.
I totally let my boys pee outside, if it's our own back yard. If it keeps their pants dry - I'm for it.
P.S. Can I just say: I can't imagine posting blogs in the early morning. You are some motivated woman. I'm not even thinking straight until I've been up an hour or two...even then, it's iffy.
I can't handle an unmade bed! Too OCD for that one. But skipping school to go skiing with grandma, or out to lunch, or just about anything else that sounds fun is totally OK with me. And my kids frequently help us drive home from church when they sit on our laps in the front seat!
Except for a brief period a couple years ago, I've never trained my kids to make their beds, but I do intend to one of these days, maybe even this summer. I think it's a good life skill and makes a room so much more pleasant. I grew up in a house where we never made beds, but after I was married I figured out that if I made my own bed every day that it only took a couple of minutes and made my whole room (which was a big chunk of our tiny apartment) look nice for the rest of the day. I'm just coming off a phase where I often didn't get my bed made (end-of-pregnancy with hypertension and having to lie down a lot, and then the first couple months with a newborn) and I'm enjoying being back to a made-bed stage of life. My bed is also where we fold laundry, which, which works better when it's made.
My kids have bunk beds and my husband and I have an old water-bed, so there's no bed-jumping allowed in this house. (We do have a trampoline, and I love having it.) When my now five-year-old was one, she and my daughter were tousling on my bed and she went flying and hit my husband's dresser and broke her collarbone. It seems so unfair that all your bed-jumping kids have escaped injury and not my non-bed-jumpers! :)
I keep seeing you comment on other blogs I read so I thought I'd stop by.
Funny, I just read a blog post of someone whose child fell off the bed while jumping on it and got quite a nasty gash.
When our kids were little and weighed next to nothing we'd let them jump on our bed. Now we have a trampoline. But every once in a while I'll catch our youngest doing impressive flips on the couches and I let him go a few rounds before stopping him because it's fun to watch him!
I don't think we do anything particularly unconventional. There are a lot of really good ways to parent. Everyone does it a little bit differently. :)
We're total nosepickers. We never do bibs. I have been known to let them eat chapstick in the grocery store when it keeps them quiet.
I might arrest myself.
Erin, you are in the Primary Presidency too? How do you like it?
I had been in RS forever and hadn't been in primary for YEARS...but I really love it :) I'm so with you on the bed thing. I do not make my bed and sorry to say haven't since I was 6, so I will never make my kids. And I would jump on the bed if I wasn't worried about breaking it :)
I don't make them make their beds either, I can't think of anything I let them do that is unconventional though. I will have to think on it!
I let my kids say the "F" word, fart. Some people think that is a terrible word. But with 3 boys it is a fact of life.
We let our kids write on the wall in marker and crayon. We also let them make pictures on the carpet with black currant juice (because there's not grape juice in Poland). Just kidding!
Our bed is wimpy (no box springs etc.) so they can't jump on it and they have bunk beds, so no jumping there, either. But we are in hotels all the time and they are allowed and encouraged to jump all they want on THOSE beds!
I'm so glad to find out I'm not alone in the not-making-the-bed-category!!
I let my kids wear the same shirt 2 days in a row.
We eat brownies for breakfast.
I only make my bed b/c it is lovely when I do but I don't do it often. I have never made my kids beds or asked them to do it. I agree, it's just a waste of time. I can one up you--we don't wash their sheets very often when they're little, either. Once they are old enough to start to sweat and smell, it's different, but when they are little, what's the big deal? Right? RIGHT? hello?
I let my kids walk on the furniture, used to let them jump on the bed (till Emma fell and cracked her chin open on the headboard - umm, oops?), we never make beds 'round here, and this is kind of gross, but hand washing is sporadic at best. Eeep.
We don't make beds at our house either. One day if I have a nice bed with a nice comforter, maybe but that is a big maybe. There are so many things that I do that drive my mom crazy because she didn't do it that way that it makes me laugh. I leave piles of clean laundry in all of the rooms because I hate putting it away. That is probably the worse thing I do.
No bed making at our house either and my mom would be embarrassed:) Mine jump off beds, countertops, etc. They have to have some fun. I also let them help me cook. Found out they love it!
Wow, lots of comments! If I read a blog, I usually comment! I don't follow very many because I don't want to bog myself down feeling like I have to sit at the computer forever. I enjoy blogging but have many other things to keep me busy:) Have a blessed day!
My kids jump on the beds. And stand on the couches. And eat in front of the TV.
Bad, bad mommy. Ü
enjoyed your blog-
Bed making? That would require quilts. I don't believe in quilts since my son is only partially potty trained. We just pile his blankets at the end of his bed.
Now plastic sheets- those I believe in!
PS- I can't enjoy 'Love you Forever' anymore. Took too many German lit classes in college with Freudian references.
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