You Say Tomato, I Say Wipe Up Your Damn Mess

SK, who has become quite a fan of Dear Prudence, asked me what I thought of her advice to a neatnik fed up with her boyfriend's sloppiness. He thought Prudence was less than helpful, but I'm not sure I agree:

Dear Prudence:

A couple of months ago, my boyfriend had part of his ceiling collapse. I told him he was welcome to stay with me until it was repaired. It's fixed now, but he's still at my place. I travel frequently for work and have been coming home to some unpleasant surprises. He's trying to be helpful but says he's "just a guy." So when he does the laundry, my dark clothes end up covered in light-colored towel fluff. There are other disgusting and unsanitary issues like the trail of urine running down my toilet and the kitchen counter spotted with grease or food. I'm not a neat freak, but I do think that he should respect my living space. I even hired a cleaning lady—but neither she nor I can clean up after him every day. After an exhausting trip, I came home to a new mystery odor and again set upon scrubbing his urine off of my bathroom floor. I don't want to marry or have kids, and I'm tired of acting like his mommy, but I do want to keep him as my boyfriend. How do I get him out of my house without getting him out of my life?

—Grossed Out

Dear Grossed,

He may be a true slob, or he may be "just a guy" (if you had a Venn diagram of these two states, the overlap would be significant), but face it—you're a neat freak. You are entitled to be one, but it's a good thing that until now you have lived alone. Either your boyfriend adores you or his apartment is a dump, because having someone monitor every crumb you leave and drop of urine you discharge has got to be a real drag. (As comedian Rita Rudner once observed about men's relationship to toilets, "They aren't too specific.") The best way to get him out of your apartment is to tell the truth: Living together full-time is driving both of you crazy and will destroy your relationship. Explain that his moving in has made you realize that having another person around to mess up your pristine space is not for you, and surely he can't be happy having you chase after him with a wet rag. There are no guarantees he will continue to be your boyfriend, but if he's stuck around this long, he seems unlikely to end it just because you want him to go back to dribbling on his own bathroom tiles.

—Prudie

SK felt Prudie was unreasonably harsh on this woman--that food remains and urine stains are indeed worth getting up in arms over, and not the province of obsessive-compulsive folk only. And while she honed in to criticize this particular woman, she was even harder on men in general, assuming they're generally all slobs beyond redemption. My first instinct is that this is not Prudie's best work.

But there's more under the surface here: while the writer basically wants to be patted on the back and told that she's right and her boyfriend is a pig, Prudie won't give her that out. So many letters that show up in these columns are just about labels and validation--who's right, who's wrong, who's normal, who's unreasonable--when in fact picking sides, most of the time, does nothing to address the problem.

What Prudence's answer forces us to recognize is that it doesn't matter which one of them is normal and which one is nuts--all that matters is that they have different expectations, natures, and comfort levels and living together is driving them BOTH mad

If they were married or otherwise deliberately cohabiting, Prudie might have made some suggestions about how to communicate openly about this and find a reasonable medium. But in this case the woman has no desire to be married, and she doesn't even want to be living with this guy--he's just staying without any discussion or decision between them. So the thing to do at this juncture is not to get him to respect her space, but to go back to his own.

Prudie's response had a bit more sneer to it than I expected (who knew she had such a grudge against neatniks?) but in the end, she gives the woman the answer she needs and the words to use, so in my book she's done her duty.

On Respecting EVERYONE'S Right to Choose....

Who would have thought that deciding never to become pregnant could raise as many hackles and sermons as deciding to terminate a pregnancy?

When there is no conceivable (ha!) harm to any stage of human life, no breaking, bending, protesting, or changing of any law, WHERE do people get off thinking that the life-changing decision to reproduce rests with anyone but the potential parents?

Yesterday Amy ran a series of letters from readers responding to an earlier letter from a woman seeking a snappy comeback for people who insist on questioning her decision not to have children. The column in its entirety is below; my comments interspersed.

Dear Readers: Some time back, I ran a letter from "No Babies in South Dakota," about how to respond to frequent queries about when she and her husband would have children.

Because they don't plan to have children, they were looking for a "snappy comeback." Readers responded by the bushel. A surprising number of readers accused people who don't wish to have children of being selfish. [This is unbelievable to me! Selfish with respect to whom? Whose needs are not being considered? It just makes no sense!]

Other readers offered snappy comebacks or other responses to the age-old question: "When are you going to have kids?"

Dear Amy: Why is it necessary to have a snappy comeback? Most people ask out of curiosity.

Being a person who is decided against kids and marriage, I always politely but firmly say that was my lifestyle choice.

Only a Neanderthal would push the point, and then I still politely but firmly say, "These questions are getting a little personal." — Personal Choice

[Hmm...as is so often the case, the vanilla answer is probably the only one that will get the inquisitor to realize that THEY'RE the one being rude. Snappy feels good, but just gives the busybody the chance to denounce you as a terrible person and rejoice that you're not choosing to multiply your DNA. Which I guess still achieves the same end.....]

Dear Amy: I'm a 49-year-old woman. When people ask me why I don't have children, I just say, "I love doting on other people's children, and with such a wonderful niece and nephew, that's enough for me." This has worked well for me, but on occasion I have had to set some boundaries with particularly insistent people. In those cases, I said, "It is a personal decision that is not open for discussion." — Elisa

Dear Amy: "No Babies" should more honestly rationalize her decision by just admitting, "I'm selfish, and I don't want to interrupt my lifestyle" or "I dislike children; they are so untidy," or "I'm afraid I'd make a child turn out as miserably neurotic as myself." — Disgusted

["Disgusted?" Seriously? I cannot understand why these people are SO BITTER and judgmental. "I don't want to interrupt my lifestyle?" A child is not an interruption--it's a paradigm shift. You shouldn't be having children unless family life IS your lifestyle. Choosing how you want to live your life, and how you CAN live your life, is not selfish. Having a child that you know you can't love or care for properly--THAT'S selfish.

You can LIKE children without wanting to be a parent. Or you can honestly DISLIKE children--in which case the decision not to have them would be well-founded--but that doesn't mean the only "honest" recourse is to announce this preference widely. Just as, in the company of a garbage collector, one wouldn't say "I could NEVER be a garbage collector, it's so DISGUSTING," tactful people who don't want kids are probably right to remain reticent about their reasons--not only because those reasons are personal and private, but to avoid giving the impression that they look down on the choices of their friends and relatives who ARE parents--something parents tend to read into these situations, but non-parents generally have no desire to convey.]

Dear Amy: If you don't have kids and you're happy with it, you're "childfree." If you don't have kids and you're not happy with it, you're "childless." — Childfree by Choice[

[Yay semantics!]

Dear Amy: My husband and I have known couples that have "elected" not to have children. It seems that these couples always replace the children in their lives with a very pleasant lifestyle that includes frequent vacations, nice clothes, fine cars, above-average homes, season tickets to sporting events, plays, concerts and a lifestyle that couples with children never dream of.

All to replace the emptiness of an empty nest. This all smacks of the '60s hippie culture through the '70s "me generation." — Not Buying It

[This, to me, smacks of the Depression-era/Greatest Generation, raised to sacrifice, adhere to one's duty, live simply and frugally--and that to do more than that is ostentatious and selfish. That there's something shameful about a "very pleasant lifestyle." Yes, couples who do not have children, in most cases, have more disposable income. That's just math. It does not mean that they're trying to "replace" children with luxury or embrace a profligate lifestyle that "couples with children never dream of." WHY would people without extra mouths to feed, bodies to clothe, and minds to educate stick to the same budget and lifestyle as people with them, while their earnings sit in a stack at the bank?]

Dear Amy: To the couple with concerns about inquiries: Bottom line — it is your private business! Remember, too, that you have the right to change your mind. In one case we know of, it took 17 years, but when the baby came, it was for all the correct reasons. — No Excuses/No Regrets

Dear Amy: I, too, have the same "no babies" problem.

Nothing infuriates me more than when people say, "You want them, but you just don't know it yet." I am 31, and my husband is 33. We know, and it's a no for us.

I am starting to think "We can't have kids" is the easiest response. — No Babies in Meraux, La.

[Right, until people start asking questions about your fertility and your attempts to have children or pursue adoption.....]

There are so many more complicated, troublesome problems in the world that need questioning and prodding....why on earth do so many people care about the choices that other adults have made--choices with which they are completely content, and which have no bearing on anyone else's quality of life?

This question of course could, and should, be extended to include any other number of issues where benign personal choices somehow become ammunition in any number of private and public forums....live, let live, and MYOB!

Eloquent Amy: Wordsmith of the Awkward Moment

I've written before about how one concrete and vital way that advice columnists can give real help to people they don't know, and don't know much about, is to use their knack for the vernacular to provide a script--a neutral, polite, and effective one--for the painful and awkward moments that leave many of us speechless. Amy had a great one today.

The issue is a grandmother who obviously favors her biological grandchildren over her step-grandchilren and shows it with the number and type of gifts she gives. This is an issue that Carolyn encounters all the time. I've seen it addressed less by Amy, but the words she gives today for explaining to the kids are, I think, resonant and just right. (I should note that this issue may be of particular importance to Amy these days: this summer she re-married, building a fairly large blended family with her daughter and her husband's several children).

Amy's response also speaks to another issue Carolyn has addressed a lot lately: what to do when a grandparent shows their imperfections, to the detriment of children or family? Carolyn recommends that, except in situations of abuse, it is valuable for children to know even their most "difficult" family members, to appreciate people as complex, multi-faceted beings, and to be loved by as many people as possible--even those who may clash with mom and dad or show their love in atypical ways. I appreciate that Amy doesn't say "tell Grandma to treat the kids equally or she'll never see them again because you can't trust her to respect your family's rules."

Rather, she gives the mom the tools to equip her kids to recognize and adjust to unfairness in the world, without losing their sense of self and self confidence:

Dear Disappointed: You and your husband have already tried to deal with this in a straightforward and honest way by talking directly to his mother about this. That's the best response to her behavior.

Your kids are old enough to discuss this with you, so, in advance of the next gift-giving occasion your husband should take the lead by saying, "Grandma seems to enjoy giving lopsided gifts. I'm sure you've noticed this. I am not happy that she doesn't treat you all the same and have asked her to change, but she refuses. I guess she's really set in her ways. This embarrasses me, but it shouldn't embarrass you. Please try not to feel bad about what you do — or don't — receive, and always remember that we love you equally.

Grandma just can't seem to adjust to our new family as well as you all have."

To the point, neutral, supportive of the kids, and acknowledging grandma's bad behavior without criminalizing her. Go Amy!

**Reading again....I guess it does criminalize Grandma a bit: she "enjoys" giving lopsided gifts and "refuses" to change. I think it's right to let your kids know that you're aware of and don't agree with or support the disparity--but what do you think about the tone? Is something like "Grandma can't seem to understand" or "Grandma doesn't get why this is so important to us..." just as functional, or do we go with the blunter but harsher "grandma refuses to do anything about it"?