How To Get Your Teen to Clean His Bedroom

Getting a Teen Boy (sample pictured at left) to keep his bedroom clean - or at least to keep the health department from condemning your house - isn't an easy task.

Parents have long lamented the fllthy socks stuffed under the bed, the candy wrappers tossed beside the trash can instead of in it and the dishes growing mold on the nightstand.

Psychologists, parents, psychiatrists, scientists, sociologists, parents and teens participated in a 20-year study of Teen Boys and the cleanliness of their bedrooms.Following is what they learned:

- Filth helps to build a healthy immune system.
- No one has ever died from a dirty room and messy rooms are GREAT places to hide contraband.
- Mothers who don't find their son's dirty clothes in the dirty clothes hamper are NOT required to wash them. (New Rule. Moms do not wash clothes that are not in the dirty clothes basket.)
- Cleaning up your room will make your parents curious, if not suspicious, and it's the kind of thing that will make them want to buy you extra Christmas presents.
- Tidy rooms are over rated.
- Teen Girls are disgusted by Teen Boys who have Filthy Rooms.

Additionally, Teen Boys don't much care if Teen Girls are disgusted by Filthy Rooms, because this particular species of Teen Boy is highly unlikely to have a Teen Girl in his room in the first place.

If a Teen Boy did manage to get a Teen Girl into his filthy bedroom, he wouldn't know what to do with her anyway. Besides not cleaning their rooms, Teen Boys:

- do not know how to turn off lights,
- have an aversion to flushing the toilet,
- have to be told to use soap and shampoo when they shower,
- don't mind wearing the same jeans day after day after day.

Teen Boys are perhaps the most brilliant of the species. They can train their caregivers to clean up after them long after they are capable of personal hygiene and daily domestic duties. Caregivers and guardians have been faithfully serving, cleaning and providing a comfortable environment so long, it appears to be instinctive.

This brilliant sub species (Teen Boys) will continue to work the parent or caregiver to tears and exhaustion, if allowed to do so. Every effort should be made to preserve the domestic tranquility in an effort to extend the caregivers’ life until she can live long enough to see her son suffer the very same distress as a result of his own offspring.

Thus giving rise to the parental curse, "I wish for you children like I had."

The researchers also found that Teen Boys become Grown Men who:

- don't put the toilet seat down.
- fart while watching football, then blame the dog for the noise and stench.
- swear they don't snore despite audio and video evidence proving otherwise.
- think a fishing pole from Bass Pro is the perfect anniversary gift for their wives or girlfriends.

Make your husband get a sleep study. Bet he has sleep apnea. He might become nicer if he is better rested. But, there is no hope for the toilet seat thing with Teen Boy if his dad is setting the example. Build another bathroom. It will increase the value of your home and harmony will be restored.

If Real Men must fart during the football game, Real Women must light obnoxious fragrance candles during the game.

And this study has shown that not all Teen Boys follow in their fathers’ unhygenic footsteps. Some actually find pride in claiming those nacho-inspired game-day farts.

The farting ability of Teen Boys and Grown Men is best observed during road trips when the Family Unit is enclosed in a small space. Under such circumstances, Teen Boys and Grown Men usually fart silently, then proudly grin and wait to see how long it takes for other vehicle occupants to swear and roll down the windows.

Real Women have been known to carry large cans of floral-scented air freshener during such trips and spray them in the vehicle while hanging their heads out the window, gasping for fresh air.

Upon arrival at the destination, the result is Teen Boys and Grown Men are relaxed and free of flatulence, the automobile and its contents have an odd pizza/nacho/floral/poo scent and Real Women have wind-burned faces and disheveled hair.

Beware anyone who dares cross the paths of Real Women after such a road trip with Teen Boys and Grown Men.

Those very same psychologists, parents, psychiatrists, scientists, sociologists, parents, and the occasional know-it-all-friend-without-kids, applaud Real Women with Teen Boys who attempt quality family time during road trips. It is an admirable attempt to give the Teen Boy’s room and family bathroom time to air out.

Some homes have a rule that no family road trip shall take place until the Teen Boy’s bedroom is clean, resulting in no family road trips, resulting in a grateful mother who takes off for a girlfriends’ getaway at a spa resort.

The moral of this story: Don't bother trying to get your teen to clean his bedroom. Are you nuts!? Go for the girlfriends' getaway at the spa.

THE END

Contributing authors: Susan Wade, Patsy Bell Hobson, Karen Libby, Melinda Arnold, Wayne Nale

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