A Little More Freedom

From polishing shoes on Saturdays to reminding grown daughters to clean their rooms, some household rules disappear. Others simply change shape.

When I was a child, Saturday meant cleaning.

We lived on a farm, so shoes in the house were not a big problem. There was dirt anyway. But every Saturday, the house had to be cleaned, and there was another job waiting for us: my father’s shoes.

We had to clean them every Saturday. It was not really optional.

My husband remembers the same thing from his childhood. It was normal then. You sat outside on a chair, gathered the family’s shoes and polished them.

Today, I hardly ever polish my own shoes.

Some rules simply do not survive.

When responsibility was just normal

I do not remember my childhood as a house full of rules. My parents were busy, and there were things I simply had to manage myself.

Homework was one of them.

My parents did not have time to check whether I had done it. If I did not do my homework, it was my fault. It was my problem. Looking back, I do not think that was bad. I think it was a good thing.

There were other responsibilities that belonged naturally to everyday life. Once a week, I cycled to the butcher. Around the house and farm, everyone had things they were expected to do.

Even outside the house, responsibility had clear boundaries. Where we live, people are responsible for the pavement in front of their homes. When there is snow, you clear your part. If you do not, and somebody gets hurt there, that can become your responsibility.

Perhaps that is why some things never felt like rules. They were simply what you did.

Then you become the parent

With my own daughters, I had rules too.

Their bedrooms did not have to be perfect, but I did not want things lying everywhere on the floor. They became quite organised. They learned to change their own bedding, put it in the washing machine and make the bed again. Sometimes they vacuumed their rooms themselves.

Of course, as they became older, there was another problem.

I kept reminding them.

“You need to clean that. You need to do this. You need to vacuum.”

Again and again.

I know I made them nervous. My husband would tell me, “You need to stop. You always say the same.” He was right. Sometimes the first thing I said when I saw them was something they still needed to clean.

But when you are the parent, you can also see what happens if nobody does it.

Someone still has to vacuum.

The rules they remember differently

Not everything we gave our daughters felt like a rule at the time.

When they were small, I did not work on Wednesdays. Every Wednesday, I drove with them to the next city and we went to the library. We looked at books. We sat on the sofa. Each of them could choose what she wanted to read, or simply look at the pictures.

At weekends, my husband and I liked cycling. When our oldest daughter was very small, we took her with us. Later she could cycle herself while her younger sister travelled with us. We did many cycling trips.

Apparently, too many.

Now both daughters say they have had enough. Cycling and walking are finished for them. They remind us that we made them do far too much of it when they were younger. Maybe one day they will enjoy it again.

A house after the children leave

Now one daughter has moved away for her studies, and the house is different.

It stays cleaner.

Her bedroom is tidy because she did what she needed to do before leaving. Before she comes home for the weekend, I only need to vacuum. There are fewer long hairs appearing everywhere around the house.

But she left something else behind.

Her aquarium.

A few years ago, she desperately wanted fish. She asked every day. Every day, every day, every day. Eventually we bought the aquarium.

She won.

Now the fish are still in her room, and we have to remember to feed them. Because nobody goes into that room every day anymore, you have to consciously think: the fish need food.

The aquarium also needs cleaning. That was always a lot of work, and my daughter could usually find another reason not to do it.

We are thinking about finding somebody who would like the fish and take care of them. My brother-in-law, who goes fishing sometimes, had another suggestion. He would use them as bait.

No. Absolutely not.

If I give the fish away, they are going to somebody who wants them.

Some rules remain firm.

Knowing when not to say anything

The harder rules are the ones that change because your children are no longer children.

My daughter is 18 now. She has her driving licence. She can go where she wants without asking us to take her. She told me this was the best summer she has ever had.

I can understand why.

She went out almost every evening during the holidays. She went to another town with friends. She went to a discotheque and sometimes came home very late.

Of course, I worried.

Now that she is not living at home, she has allowed me to see her location on Snapchat. I am grateful for that. But this creates a strange new rule for me.

I can look, but I cannot say too much.

If I keep asking, “Where are you?” or putting too much pressure on her, she can simply stop sharing her location. So sometimes I know exactly where she is, and I have to keep quiet.

That may be one of the biggest differences between the rules of my childhood and the rules in my house today.

When I was young, responsibility meant polishing the shoes because Saturday had arrived, cycling to the butcher because it needed to be done, and managing my homework because nobody else was going to manage it for me.

As a parent, responsibility sometimes meant making rules and repeating them until everybody was tired of hearing them.

Now it can mean something completely different.

Sometimes it means trusting your daughter to make her own decisions, even when you are still watching the little dot move across the map.