Carolyn: When I was a teenager and in college, I was a slob. No two ways around it. I am now 28 and own a condo. Over the past few years, I have started keeping my place significantly neater and have a cleaning service to do the heavy lifting. Nobody who has come to my home in years has commented on the condition negatively.
Except one person: my mother. She makes comments about small things (the glasses in my cabinet were not arranged according to size) when she visits and alludes to the fact that I am slovenly. At family gatherings, like a recent wedding shower when the bride received a vacuum cleaner, my mother exclaimed, “Good thing you didn’t get that, you wouldn’t even know how to use it!”
Yes, I was a messy teen and college student. But I am now a gainfully employed professional with a clean condo. Any tips for pointing this out to my mother? I don’t want to sound petulant, but this really bothers me.
NO LONGER A SLOB
This is actually pretty typical — not the cleaning arc, though that’s common, too, but the Mom-won’t-let-her-image-of-me-grow-up problem.
I suggest a two-pronged attack:
(1) Have the Conversation. “I can think of many occasions lately when you’ve made an issue or joke of my cleaning habits: (example or two here). I get it, ha ha, I used to be a huge slob. But I’m an adult, well past a lot of stuff I did as a kid, so I’m mystified that I still have this label. Is there something you’re trying to say, something that’s bothering you?” Hear her out and do your best to respond charitably, versus defensively. Defensiveness is a brick wall.
(2) No matter how she responds — be it defensiveness of her own, or lip service, or genuine change — be prepared to let the subject drop. People hold on to things for all kinds of reasons, many they can’t articulate.
A common one is that people form impressions, organize them in a way they understand — and hang on to that filing system because it’s more secure-feeling than recognizing that over time, they have to reacquaint themselves with the people they supposedly know best in the world.
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